Dishwasher Pod Mini Trash Can (or Storage Canister) with Duct Tape


I always enjoy a good duct tape project. Duct tape is durable and bright and fun to play with, but trying to get it to look professional can be a bit of a pain. A few years ago, I covered a Cascade pod canister with duct tape to create a little storage canister. After much trial and error, I figured out how best to approach the project, which saved me a ton of time when I raided my stash of recyclables for a new project.


I had two dishwasher pod canisters in my saved for crafts recyclables box, so I dug out some fun new duct tape that I hadn't gotten a chance to use yet and got ready to work. I highly recommend using a cutting mat and a rotary cutter when working with duct tape, you can measure and uses scissors, but it will be much easier with a rotary cutter. The tape sticks to even the non-stick scissor blades, but doesn't seem to stick to the rotary cutter (probably because you're only cutting it on the non-sticky side). It's also a lot easier to keep your lines nice and straight with a rotary cutter and a straight edge.


I chose some fun patterned tape (unless you are painting your existing lid, try to choose tape that has a bit of the color in the lid--in my case green) and a coordinating solid and made some sheets of duct tape. I learned from my first time trying this project that applying the strips of tape directly to the canister all the way around doesn't work well. It's just tapered and curved enough that the tape gets wrinkled and is difficult to apply straight. I also tried making a large sheet of duct tape to wrap around the canister, that didn't work so well either (same problems with wrinkles). So I learned that you have to make a sheet of duct tape for each side of the canister. For the 90 ct Cascade pod canister, the wide side measures 6 inches wide by 6 1/8 inch tall.


The narrower sides of the canister measure 4 1/2 inches wide and 6 1/8 inch tall. The finished project looks a bit better if you start applying the narrow sides first and smooth the wider sides over the already taped narrow sides. So after you have an overlapping block of tape stuck down to a cutting mat, use a straight edge to cut your rectangles to the correct dimensions.


Then carefully smooth them onto the canister. This worked ok, but having the stripe in the middle of the duct tape sheet was difficult to keep lined up (and as you can see, the cascade logo shows through a bit.


So this one turned out ok (and that tie-dye tape is super fun), but there were still a few tweaks to be made to the process to keep the corners a bit neater, etc...


So I decided to move the solid colored tape to the top of my duct tape sheet and to cut all 4 sheets from one large sheet of duct tape. I used a geometric patterned duct tape, but I intentionally didn't line the pattern up (I did try to make sure that straight lines lined up, but I didn't line up the pattern) so that when it overlapped at the corners, it wouldn't be the only place that it didn't match up, in effect camouflaging the corners. The large sheet was 21 inches wide and 6 1/8 inches tall.


Then cut the 4 1/2 inch wide sections first for the narrow sides and peeled them off of my cutting mat.


I lined it up with the bottom of the canister as best as I could.


Then I smoothed the center down from the bottom to the top, tucking the top edge of the tape under the lip of the canister.


Then I smoothed the tape from the center out to the edges. These techniques gave me the smoothest and straightest application of the tape sheets.


I repeated those same steps on the opposite narrow side and then on each of the wider sides until the canister was covered. The tape lined up great! The photo above shows the corner that was the most uneven (pretty good, right?).


These canisters make great mini trash cans for your car, but could be used to store lots of little things. It's such an easy thing to reuse--the duct tape just makes it more fun!

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