How to Make Soda Pop Can Charms

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Turn soda cans into decorative garden charms! This easy craft transforms the metal into punched tin butterflies, flowers, birds, and other creative shapes.

Also see these recycled garden art projects for more ideas.

Make Crafts With Pop Cans

Butterfly charm made from a soda can. — Cans

This craft uses the metal from pop cans to create metal decorations and trinkets.

Our world has a massive garbage problem including the incredible volumes of single-use packaging clogging landfills and polluting waterways. This craft won’t fix it, but giving materials a second life is one small way to push back while we sound the alarm.

Watch the How-to Video

This video gives a good overview of how I make these trinkets.

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DIY Soda Can Garden Charms

I call these “garden charms” but you could make anything with a simple shape.

Supplies

Soda pop cans
Box cutter
Scissors
Cardstock
Sharpie
Nail
Hammer
Cutting board or other crafting surface

Optional

Fine wire for butterfly antennae
Small magnets
Heated glue dispenser or other adhesive

Safety

Safety glasses
Protective gloves

Creative projects including shadow box, watercolor painting, nature crafts, and stone painting.

Steps

1Prepare and Cut Cans

Wash rinse and dry the soda cans.
Cut off bottom and top with box cutter.

You’ll end up with a rectangle of metal. To flatten it out, roll it over a table edge, removing the curl.

Miniature polymer clay box of donuts and chocolate chip cookies.

2Create Templates

Create templates with cardstock. Ideas include butterflies, flowers, birds, or any basic shapes.
Make sure your design fits the size of the metal.

I made snails, butterflies, birds, and flowers.

3Trace and Cut

Trace the template onto the metal and cut out.

If your soda can metal is the same as mine, I find that only pointed corners are sharp. The round cuts are smooth. If you’re worried about the charm being sharp to touch, just stick to round shapes.

4Metal Stamping

This is the fun part. Place the butterfly on an old cutting board and punch designs in it with a screw/nail and hammer. If you need to draw lines to follow, pencil shows up lightly. You can also use a fine sharpie marker and remove the marks later with acetone nail polish remover.

For something like a butterfly, try to make your nail punch designs symmetrical.

Here (next photo) you can see the back side of the butterfly. I’ve threaded a fine piece of wire through holes at the top of the head to look like antennae.