Pringles Can People - Treasure Jars for Kids to Make

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Got some empty Pringles containers hanging around? Have the kids turn them into treasure jars with this adorable Pringles Can People craft!

Don’t you just love it when the kids can make a great craft using scraps and recyclables that you already have around the house?

That’s how we make most of our crafts here it keeps our crafting costs down, and it’s fun to get creative with items that would normally be tossed into the recycle bin.

Pringles cans are great for crafting with, so I never throw them away. We’ve made all kinds of things with them: binoculars, wind socks, fine motor toys etc.

And the other day, we made these awesome Pringles Can People.

The hooligans love making “people crafts” with scraps of fabric and yarn, and other various odds and ends. We’ve made a few self-portrait crafts out of cereal boxes and paper plates recently, and in the past we’ve made paint stick people and popsicle stick people.

The kids love pouring through our big bin of fabric scraps, our button collection, and the yarn basket, choosing just the right combination of colours and textures to create something truly unique.

Knowing how much they love this sort of craft, I came up with the idea for these Pringles Can People, and what’s cool is that the kids can use their decorated Pringles cans to store hair ties, small toys or collectibles in. Wouldn’t they look cute sitting on a bedroom dresser or on a shelf in the toy room?

You could even make a whole Pringles can family to hold various art and craft supplies.

Let me show you how to we made them!

To make our Pringles Can People, we used:

clean, empty Pringles cans
acrylic craft paint
fabric scraps
ribbon scraps
coloured buttons
paint brushes
scissors
glue
low-heat glue gun (optional but handy for heavy buttons and thick fabric)

Clean your can:

First, to remove any oily residue left by the chips, we cleaned our Pringles cans by misting the inside with vinegar, and drying with a paper towel. If the vinegar odour bothers you, add a few drops of vanilla to a cotton ball, and drop that into the can to neutralize the smell of the vinegar.

Start with some paint:

To begin, the kids used flesh-coloured paint to paint a 3 to 4 inch strip all around their cans.

While this area dried, they rooted through the fabric bin and the ribbon collection, and decided on the pieces they would use to dress their people.

Add clothes and hair:

They cut strips of fabric long enough to wrap all the way around their cans. Note: we used kitchen shears for this step because they slice through fabric much better than kids’ scissors do. If you’re working with children who aren’t old enough to use sharp scissors safely, they will need your assistance.

Then the kids brushed a layer of white glue all around the can, and pressed on their fabric.

Originally, I thought we would use yarn for hair, but one of the hooligans found a roll of brown ribbon, and she turned it into hair by cutting it into strips. The others thought it was a great idea, and followed suit.

Wasn’t that a brilliant idea?

They added buttons, and they made belts and scarves using various lengths of fabric and ribbon.

Finish with a face:

And the kids painted faces on their Pringles cans.

One of the girls got creative using buttons for eyes instead of paint. Notice the little gem-stone earrings. Those are just dollar store craft jewels. So cute!

Other possibilities:

All of our Pringles cans happen to look like girls because that’s how the hooligans chose to decorate them, but your kids can turn their Pringles containers into super-heroes, cartoon characters, or people in uniform.