Store ANY dry food items or spices on them, and add a label to find what is in them. So pasta, flours, lentils, spices, … seeds for planting, edible seeds, you name it.
The more coffee containers of the same size you have the better it will look.

I also like using some pretty and big coffee containers to flower pots. Use a nail or a screwdriver or something to make a few holes on the bottom, and add some small stones on the bottom of the cans to keep them well drained.

I was listening to National Public Radio the week of 05/18-05/24 and one man’s story about his father’s use of old smaller coffee cans was really touching. He stated that when he was young, in his father’s cluttered garage, there was an accumulation of old coffee cans. After suggesting that his dad stop buying the small cans and start buying the larger ones for the sake of space and waste management, his father told him, as a dad might, to more or less mind his own business. Many years later, on Memorial Day, his father asked for and received a commitment from him to plant flowers. They met up and put flowers in all the cans and then took them to the cemetaries of many of the influential people he’d met or that helped him out or took care of him in his life; each grave being the introduction of a person lost but not forgotten, as a way for his dad to tell his life story in a secret tradition.

Thought it was pretty amazing.

I’d only be concerned of what might happen to them after they’re removed from the graves.

I use a coffee can to put food scraps in under the kitchen sink until I take it out to empty in the compost bin in my backyard. It’s big enough to fit food from a day or two and it seals well, so you can’t smell the food getting funky in there before it fills up and gets emptied.

With a few holes in the bottom (hammer and nail) coffee cans make a good small watering can!

If you remove the bottom With a can opener)and hammer it flat, you will end up with a cone sort of shaped thing, you nail em to the post, fill ‘em with dirt, and grow som herbs!

Urm… Don’t buy coffee in cans???

Just a thought - we bought one can of Illy about 6 years ago and now we buy it in bags and just refill it…

Saves you about 2 quid a can as well

My children and I enjoy turning those coffee cans into planters for our outside garden. We clean them, paint them, poke holes in the bottom for drainage, and plant flowers in them. Cheaper than buying pots and great for reycling the cans. Can also be resued the next year. Hope you liked the suggestion.

Rich, where can you buy Illy in bags? I was going to suggest this too - and keep the bag to take back to the store to refill. I’d love to know where one can get Illy as loose beans rather than in a can; I’ve yet to find a coffee that I like as much!

Is there a bar in your neighbohood using Illy? You can ask the barman to buy beans from him: they buy huge quantity, I think you can manage to have your tin filled by him for a cheap price, also.
I know, maybe it’s difficult, I mean, I am writing from Italy and I would be advantaged if I would do the same…

In the winter time,I make alot of homemade soups and stews,so I can pass some on to other family members.As long as the cans are’nt rusty,use them to put soups and other foods in them.Then,you won’t have to fuss with people to bring your tupperware back!

stilts