Coffee Can-O-Lantern

As promised I have another Halloween craft for everyone to try. This one will be far easier than the door hanger project. The idea can to me one morning after I found myself with yet another empty coffee can and an overly excited 4 year old. It reminded me of going to my Grandparents house on Halloween and blowing out the candles on all the luminaries that they would light for the neighborhood kids. Grandma and Grandpa may not have had the best candy but, they did have tons of candles to blow out.

This memory fueled little craft will be coffee can jack-o-lanterns. These can be made with a standard metal coffee can or if your the Starbucks kind(your wasting your money) you can use cleaned canned food cans. We used 28 oz tomato cans for the small ones shown. This can be done on a cool fall morning and be done in time to light the same night. Our oldest absolutely loved this project, she got to draw her own design and with my help she drilled the holes. Dad's (or Mom's) this is a great opportunity to teach your kids about how a drill functions as well as another opportunity to drive home that tools are not toys. This is especially important with sharp tools like drills or if your a former mechanic with more tools at home than any normal homeowner could ever need. Don't have a drill, well does your dad, grandpa or neighbor? If they do ask to borrow and make them one as a thank you. As a guy that loans tools occasionally I think more kids need shown how to return tools in a timely manner anyway. Still no luck? Fear not, you could get by with a hammer and a punch or screwdriver to make your holes. That should just about cover any possible excuse you could think of not to do this.

Items Needed

• Tin Cans
• Primer, Orange Paint
• Drill and Drill Bits
• Marker
• Candles
• Metal Polish (optional)
• Center Punch (optional)

Lets Pluck This Chicken

1. Prep and clean your cans. Make sure all the food product is out and no sharp edges are exposed.

Only need a few tools for this project

2. Draw your design on the can.

Our Artist at work

3. If you have an available center punch use it to punch out the design. This will make drilling the holes     much easier.

With a little help from dad it's ready for the drill

4. Drill out the design. We used a 5/64th drill bit. Any bit under 1/8th inch should work fine.

5. Paint, apply primer first for ease of painting. Do not paint the inside of the cans as you need the     

    shinny finish to reflex the light of the candle. A toothpick will help clean out paint from the holes 
    during painting.

Mom helps with the painting

 6. Light and enjoy the your hard work. Not enough light coming out? Try pollishing the inside of   
     the can with some metal polish.

Dads, Dad and Kaelins, Kaelin and Moms on display

We Play For October......

I will freely admit that I have a problem. Every October I watch an unhealthy amount of baseball. This is quite a feat due to the fact I watch or listen too most A's games and a quite a few other games every week. This only gets worse because of the playoffs. My issue isn't that my pants fit tighter or my couch gets worn, it those damned ads. It seems that the advertising executives at MLB, Chevrolet, and Budweiser only make one ad for the entire playoffs. Every commercial break its the same ads for and entire month and while it may drive me nuts my kids certainly take note of them. For the last 2 years Kaelin has know October as Chebie Twuck Month. She thinks that Stevie Wonder is a singer for Bud-Light ads. And now she is walking around our house in a semi-serious voice telling me "we play for October". Oh the power of marketing. I guess this could all be prevented if I just turned off the TV and read about the games the next day but since that will never happen i'll keep dancing to Bud-Light ads during Chevy Truck month while we all play for October.