“Wait, That’s a Salmon Can?”

If you haven’t considered upcycling your empty seafood cans, now’s your moment. Upcycling can satisfy your creative impulses, it’s gentler on the planet, and it all begins with a delicious snack or meal of tuna, salmon, sardines, and beyond. Every small action adds up, and giving packaging a second life is an easy place to start.

Quick Tips for Upcycling Success

Before you get your craft on, keep these tips in mind: Start by washing cans thoroughly and removing labels completely (you might need to soak them in warm, soapy water if labels are stubborn). File down any sharp edges with a steel file if you need to, especially on cans you might be handling frequently. Once you’ve gotten the prep out of the way, you’re ready to get to the good stuff.

Decorative Mini-Planters

Let’s kick things off with a tried-and-true upcycling favorite: The plant container. Small circular seafood cans are the perfect size for housing succulents or petite indoor plants (miniature African violets, we’re looking at you). Punch or drill a few small holes in the bottom to prevent root rot, then embellish and decorate your planter to your heart’s content. Our favorite trick is wrapping the outside with twine for a rustic effect.

Tea Light Holders

Seafood cans also make cute holders for tea lights or votive candles. Paint the outside for a pop of color, wrap with decorative paper, or leave them bare for an industrial look. Think outside the traditional can orientation, too: If you turn cans on their sides, nestle an electric tea light inside, and hang them with twine, they can make striking light fixtures for events.

Outdoor Lanterns

Want to level up your tea light holders? If you’re feeling a bit more adventurous, you can make pretty outdoor lanterns by using a hammer and nails to punch tiny holes in your cans. Larger seafood cans work best for this, so hang onto your cans for oysters, jack mackerel, or whole baby clams.

Spice Storage

Use small seafood cans to store bulk spices or homemade spice blends—the uniform size means they stack beautifully in drawers or on narrow shelves. Invest in a few silicone can lids, label the tops, and stack them in a drawer or cupboard for easy access.

Desktop Command Center

Flat, rectangular sardine tins are perfect for projects beyond the typical can craft, and are particularly good for corralling small desk chaos: paper clips, binder clips, thumbtacks, rubber bands, or any other bits that tend to scatter. Paint them in bright, cheery colors and line a few tins up in a drawer—or keep them on your desk for instant organization.

Micro Art Box

For the artists and Joseph Cornell fans among us, consider your sardine tin as a frame for a fairy-sized diorama. Paint the interior, then layer in anything that catches your fancy to create your own tiny cabinet of curiosities: paper cutouts, tiny shells, miniatures, and more. Check out #sardinetinart for inspiration, and let your imagination go wild.

Irrigation Testers

This one doesn’t involve crafting (you can even skip over our prep step), but it will make your lawn the envy of all the neighbors: the “Tuna Can Test” is a master gardener trick for making sure your irrigation is evenly distributing water across your lawn. All you need to do is collect 6–12 cans and follow these easy steps for placing them around your sprinklers.

Beyond the Tin

Of course, cans aren’t the only items you can upcycle. Check out Instagram, Pinterest, and Upcycle That for more clever ideas—the options are endless. You can start seeds in containers made from eggshells, newspaper, or cardboard tubes, for example, or turn an old door hanging around the garage into a funky beverage bar or a potting bench. Garden possibilities abound: you can also create trellises for climbing plants from old bed springs or even bicycle wheels (that’s really putting the “cycle” in upcycle!). The only limits to upcycling, really, are the materials at hand and your imagination.