by Robbie White

Created on: March 15, 2007   Last Updated: January 19, 2011

I've always had the "well, I can do it too" attitude.
There have been times when it's gotten me in hot water but , on the most part, it's been highly beneficial.

You see, I'm a crafter. I can look at stuff then go home and make it.
I sew, knit, crochet, make candles, soaps, bath salts, bread dough, decoupage, plaster crafts and all kinds of stuff. Tooting my own horn, I must say I'm pretty good at it, too.

At a craft show, I saw the most darling snowmen and Santa's made of pop cans. Of course my brain came up with "I can do this, too"

So I headed for the local crafts store. I frequent it a lot, the clerks know me by my first name(which on retrospect is probably not a good thing) and I can find what I'm looking for easily.

Anyway, I found a leaflet on how to recycle pop cans.
The creatures I found in that little leaflet were adorable! There were bats, bunnies, witches, Santa's, Mrs. Claus, snowmen, reindeer, pilgrims, Indians, leprechauns, and cats. The leaflet showed how to decorate with them, too.
And it quickly became my best friend.

I made pop can creatures for everyone; I decorated boxes, wreaths, baskets, made plant stakes and ornaments.

I made a bevy of bats and mounds of snowmen. This last Valentine's day I even made a little cupid complete with mini wings, diaper and bow and arrow.
I was hooked.

Then, I decided this recycling thing was the way to go. So back to the craft store I went. I found leaflets on coffee cans, tuna cans, bags, boxes and bottles. Just about anything you could find on recycling. It was great!
I made the greatest array of recycled craft projects.

Coffee cans lend to some really creative projects. You can make all sorts of stuff from them, anything from holiday cookie containers to hand-painted plant containers to fancy birdhouses to Noah and Santa's to, well, you name it.
Tuna cans are very adaptable,. I made a hanging candelabra to hold votive candles and they're great for tiny baskets, too. Bags, boxes and bottles are pretty remarkable, too. This ugly 2 liter bottle was a wind spinner in no time and another one became a piggy bank. Brown bags can become burnt bag creations and boxes can quickly become anything. There's just too many things one person can do with all this glorious JUNK.

I'm thinking of new things everyday.
Now you should see my craft room.
I've saved every can, bottle, box, bag, scrap of ANYTHING I've ever run across. I even have had friends save stuff for me.

Every corner in the craft room is filled to the ceiling with this. It's overflowing. The tiniest bump into something could cause an avalanche of epic proportions. I think I went a little nuts on this.I still use everything. One day I may even use it all. Of course I still save it, too. It's kind of growing in there. At least it looks like I've got more and more.

I recently got a nasty-gram from our city. They wanted to know how come I don't recycle. I returned with my own letter, stating that I do. They got back to me with another nasty-gram. This literally went on for months, it even escalated to them talking about fines and jail time. Over recycling?

After what felt like war time, I did the only thing I knew to convince the city officials that I DO recycle(just not their way).

I sent the mayor a snowman pop can.

The letters stopped.

p.s. I just noticed my neighbor put in new windows, maybe he'll let me have the old ones.
Wonder what I can make?

Learn more about this author, Robbie White.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.