Coca Cola and Beer

There is a jar on the coffee table in the living room that has been there forever. It occasionally gets full, gets emptied and goes right back where it was. This is the repository of the sacred can tabs. None shall pass out of my house, all must go in the jar. You can never have too many can tabs.

Why? Well, they are useful items, to be sure. And I have always wished that I could make them into chain maille, but that almost, almost eluded me. Then the AntiCraft had a contest. Make a hat for Vlad the Impaler. He was a soldier, he wore maille, didn't he? out came the trusty crochet hook and some generic black yarn and this was the result:

Sort of like maille, right? And I won 3rd place in the contest, btw. And I was off and running again.

I love to recycle objects, not only does it save the landfill, it saves my wallet and makes me feel like I'm teh genius for coming up with this stuff. So then I learned about plarn.

Plarn is yarn made from plastic bags. The cheap liquor store near my house uses solid black plastic bags which is unusual, and they coincidentally sell both coke and beer, so I was all set for designing more craft projects with the materials at hand. Here was the next project, made with black plastic bags and can tabs:

It's tiny, about the size of a folded in half dollar bill, but it sold in the etsy store!

This summer, I was longing for a purse, so I made this one:

and of course there is the bracelet, currently for sale in my Etsy store, go look!

I will keep saving those can tabs, there is someone who is inspiring me so much in the art of can tabistry, you can see her stuff here:

The Art of Can Tabistry.blogspot.com