Annual Project – Tin Can Phones
Tin can phones. Every year we make a new set of these. Seems my kids never get bored with them.
We started with two small paint cans (bought that way at Lowe’s for $2.00). Took the covers off (we will use them for some other project) and used the cans only for this. We chose the wood grain scrapbook paper pattern and Mod Podged the paper onto the cans. Once that was dry I took a screwdriver and poked a hole (with a hammer) into the bottom of the can.
Then we cut a piece of twine approximately 75 feet long and tied each end to the head of a small bolt (small enough to put through the hole at the bottom of the cans). We put the bolt through the bottom and inside the can we put a washer and a nut to tighten it all up. You can do this much more easily by just tying a knot but we were jazzing it up a bit.
Now, just find a large enough patch of field where they can stretch out, get the string nice and tight and speak to one another.
Keep in mind you can do this without so much hoopla with just a cleaned out can from your pantry and a piece of string. I don’t have a clean cut can opener and even if I did, I was opting for a pretty sturdy product.
(Below – phones in actual use. Probably could have been better with about 50 feet of string as the words are garbled a little bit through the longer distance twine).
