Can and Denim Chair

This is one awesome chair...made out of garbage. Most of us eat canned food from time to time, and all of us receive junk mail. Now you can make a sturdy chair out of items that would normally be thrown away. I covered mine with old jeans, but it can be covered with  any medium to heavy weight fabric. A toddler chair could be made with about 50 cans. If the seat were 4 cans wide x 4 cans and only 1 can tall. The arms could be 2 cans tall and the back 3 cans tall. 

Cans from vegetables,(15 ounce) corn, green beans, etc... I used 204 cans for my chair. They were all the same size. I also used 4 more cans for the legs but they were larger. Shredded paper...lots of it. Old jeans, newspapers, cardboard, shipping tape, glue gun and glue sticks. There is a piece of plywood on the bottom. You can use cans for the bottom for the legs like I did or attach store-bought legs. The great thing about making this chair is you don't have to wait until you have collected all the cans to start working on it. I probably spent a total of $10 on this project. Hot glue sticks, Tape and dowel rods. 

Trace around a can onto the cardboard. Make several circles. Cut them out. you will need one for each can. 

put the shredded paper into the clean cans, pressing down and adding more until you can't get any more paper in the can. This step makes the cans solid and very sturdy. Place a cardboard circle over the can after you fill it with shredded paper. Tape it down and set aside. Repeat with the other cans. 

make a column by taping one can on top of another. Decide how big you want the seat of the chair and then you know how many columns to make.

Cover the columns with 2 or 3 sheets of newspaper. Roll tightly, Tape or glue. This step helps strengthen the cans.

cut strips of denim from old jeans. 1" x 6". Hot glue these to the columns and keep adding until you get the chair the size you want. 

Cut a scrap piece of plywood as wide as your chair is going to be. My chair is 27" wide and 24" deep. Round the corners of the plywood with a jigsaw. You can purchase chair legs or casters, I used cans from spaghetti sauce. The cans were stuffed with shredded paper and glued denim strips to the top of them, then I glued the other end of the denim strips to the chair bottom. When you get the legs attached, start stacking the cans on top of the plywood base. 

Decide how tall you want the back of the chair. I made the seat of the chair 2 cans high, the arm section 4 cans high and the back of the chair is 6 cans high. The back of my chair is 9 columns wide. 6 x 9 equals 54 cans for the back section. I glued dowel rods to the columns that made up the back of the chair to add strength.

I used 98 cans for the seat of the chair. 7 wide by 7 deep by 2 cans high. 

The chair arms are 4 cans high and there are 6 columns in each arm. I cut up an old sheet into strips and wrapped these around the base of the chair, and hot glued in place. This step helps hold everything together. in the front corners there are 2 cans each.  This is placed directly in front of the chair arms. Glue strips of fabric all around the cans to hold them all together. 

Glue denim strips underneath the chair and bring up and glue to the cans, repeat all the way around chair. I found some scrap pieces of foam that I used for the padding of the seat and then covered the arms and back with an old blanket. Cut pieces to fit and hot glue down.

Using old jeans, cut up squares and sew them together to make a piece large enough for the seat. Allow 1/2" for seam allowance. Do the same for the back, arms and sides of the chair. Sew these sections together and place over the chair. Make it 2 inches longer than chair. fold under chair bottom and staple or hot glue. If you want to make a slip cover, stitch elastic around the bottom edge and it can be taken off to wash. The finished chair will be very heavy and sturdy.