We’ve covered the standard food size ones, but what can be done with little tin cans?

John gave a talk at the Manchester Free Software group last month and afterwards we all adjourned to a nearby pub where we found these little nuts cans on our table.

As I’d just been talking about this website to a couple of people, we decided to do a group-think on how we could re-use them but the best we could come up with was a mobile equivalent of a tin-can ‘telephone’ (because they’re more portable).

With a couple of holes punched in the bottom, they’d make cute little plant pots – but only for very little plants – so any other suggestions?

(The cans are about 4cm in diameter and 5cm in height, quite a solid metal and I think they originally had a paper lid so the rim at the top is quite dull, unlike most opened cans.)

Thanks to the felines, we generate at least one empty tin can a day. Given the size of our kitchen and the delightful pseudo-fishy aroma they tend to emit, we tend to just throw the cans in the recycling bin as soon as they’re empty.

But there must be a thousand uses for them.

Back in the pistachio shell days, we came up with the idea of using the shells in two cans taped together to make a rattling percussion instrument, so that’s one idea – but I’d love to hear more because a girl can only use so many noise makers.