Cute Compost Can

My youngest turned 21 this past weekend. I put together a cocktail statin for her with vintage decanters, cocktail and shot glasses, bar tools, and an ice bucket. Most of the items came from the thrift store. But, the one item I couldn't find at the thrift stores after searching for two weeks was an ice bucket so I bought a new one. Wouldn't you know it, the day after her birthday I found two ice buckets at the thrift stores. I decided to buy this white metal one because I knew that I needed something like it for a different purpose.

We are composters and love turning garbage into gold (or really good dirt). We have been putting our food scrap to compost in a little plastic bowl on the kitchen counter that is near the back door. 

A larger container with a lid is the perfect solution to the overflowing, plastic bowl situation.

The $2 white ice bucket was a little too farmhouse fresh for my taste and kitchen, so I spray painted it blue and added gold on the handles and rims.

Rather than writing the word compost on the can, I decided to stencil three leaves in a triangular shape which is one of the recognized compost symbols.  I use chalk to mark three triangle points.

I used a random leaf stencil I had (I taped off the leaves I didn't want) and stenciled three leaves with gold paint. I added leaf veins with a small brush.

The lid and the plastic interior makes this a much better compost container option. From the kitchen counter container, the scraps get dumped in a few buckets on the back porch and then we walk them out to the compost tumbler that sits by the green house. 

Reduce, reuse, recycle! This project does that by not only holding compost, but because it is an upcycled thrift store find--something else saved from the landfill.