Day 8 - Cans {31 Cheap & Easy DIY Organizers} | From Overwhelmed to Organized: Day 8 - Cans {31 Cheap & Easy DIY Organizers}

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Day 8 - Cans {31 Cheap & Easy DIY Organizers}




Think you have to spend a lot of money on costly organizing tools to get your house in order?  Nope!  Getting organized doesn't have to be expensive!

Throughout this series I'm sharing ideas to help you organize your home by either

  • making simple organizers with things that don't cost very much OR
  • using items you already have in a different way.
If cost has been holding you back from getting organized, now you've got no more excuses!  

Today I'm sharing ideas for using cans to get organized.  You probably have a bunch of these around your home and if not, you just need to save a few cans when you're making dinner the next few nights.  Or you can save small paint cans if you're doing any painting projects.  If you really want to do this right now, you probably have a few cans in your pantry with expired food in them that you could empty and use!

Cans can be used to organize any small items around your home (just like jars).  Different sized cans can be used for larger or smaller things.  Some common uses for cans are:

  • Office supplies (pens, pencils, scissors, rulers)
  • Craft items (paint brushes, markers, pencil crayons, scissors)
  • Cooking utensils (ladles, spoons, spatulas, flippers)
  • Hair accessories (clips, ribbons, bows, elastics)


Note: Be careful that any sharp edges are removed first!

Plain old cans or cans with old labels are not very nice to use, but if you remove the label and decorate the can a bit, you can have beautiful and creative organizers!

Here are two examples of ways you spruce up your cans to give you some inspiration.


  • You can paint the cans and decorate them with craft and scrapbook supplies like burlap, jute, photos, buttons, and charms.  I love this vintage look!  Click the link below the picture for closeups and more beautiful ideas.


Vintage, Paint and More



  • Here's a more colourful version using things like scrapbook paper, mod podge, ribbon and stickers!  


Koti Beth



  • You could also use patterned duct tape or pretty washi tape to decorate your cans.


Now that you know how you can make your cans fit your decor, here's an example of using the outside of a decorated can as well as the inside.  This is a great idea for holding headbands!


Organizing Made Fun


The great thing about using cans to organize is they are free!  Well, you have to buy them originally, but I'm assuming you ate the food that was in them, so now you're using what you would otherwise have just thrown away or recycled.  The only cost for organizing with cans is the cost of decorating them.  But you can just use things you already have around the house, so again, it's essentially a free organizer!





For more cheap and easy DIY Organizer ideas with cans, check out this post.


You can find lots of other cheap and easy DIY organizers on my DIY Organizers board on Pinterest.  Make sure you're following me on Pinterest so you don't miss any DIY organizer ideas!


Do you use cans to organize?  What do you use them for?  How do you decorate them? 


Happy {Cheap & Easy DIY} organizing!



Here are all the posts in the series.







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