Bag Lady

If you're like me then you're all about saving shopping bags--they're good for so many things--packing lunches, toys, lining small wastebaskets--the possibilities are endless. Not long ago my grandmother purchased a plastic bag holder similar to this one:

Cute right? Hers is a kitty in a dress :-)



And it got me to thinking, maybe stuffing all of my bags under the sink wasn't the best option.

"One Day All them Bags Gon' Get In Your Way...I Said One Day All Them Bags Gon' Get In Your Way... "

 

So I headed over to Pinterest to see what I could see, and low and behold I came across this:

Kinda cool huh? At least I thought so...

All that was needed to create this look was a coffee can and some paint. Even though I don't drink coffee I knew that getting my hands on a can would be pretty easy--we throw away a ton of them at my job.

Rescuring Coffee cans from Landfills since 2015



The first thing I did was peel off the label and thoroughly wash the can (inside and out). Keep in mind, the spot where the label was glued will be a tab bit tattered, be mindful of that when determining what will be the front of your dispenser.

Ready to be transformed. Ha! I didn't even wait for this to dry before I snapped a pic.

 

My first attempt  was a complete failure. I used real paint, and when I tried to wash it for a second time it peeled like Elmer's glue on the hand of a child (I'm not the only person that did that, right? Right?). No worries. I always have my trusty spray paint nearby!

I had the great idea of altering between gold and silver, so I sectioned it off.

Once I removed the tape I realized that it didn't look anything like I wanted it to (not even worth the time to snap the pic), so I decided to paint the whole thing gold.

And Wahla! Here is the finished product :-)

 

I didn't cut the slit in the top to actually make it a "dispenser", I kinda liked it as is. There is still a lot of time to decide if I want to slice the lid or not; I'm not tripping about it. If you're super crafty & coordinated you can paint the words on yourself, or if you want it to look 'just so' and would rather not bother with trying to have a sturdy hand, you can cheat like me and buy adhesives. I recommend the adhesives--I'll be using them for many more projects in the future.

 

In the end, it's no kitty in a dress...but it was nearly zero dollars and now the cabinet beneath my sink will be a lot less messy. I think that's a WIN!