Luminaries

• Hammer holes into the tin can.Martin Poole/Digital Vision/Getty Images
  
  Halloween luminaries or lanterns are lighted with real or battery-operated tea lights. The luminaries can light the path up your walkway for trick-or-treaters, be placed on your front steps or hung in trees. They are crafted by hammering holes into painted tin cans with a hammer. Much like carving a jack-o-lantern from a pumpkin, your imagination is the limit for designing these luminaries. Tin cans, painted in orange, make pumpkin faces once the holes are nailed. Cans can be painted black, with bats or haunted houses punched out.
  
  

Black Cats and Monsters

• Glue felt onto the tin can.Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
  
  You can decorate your tables and windowsills with black cats and monsters made from tin cans, paint and felt. Clean tin cans are painted or wrapped in felt and then decorated with more felt and googly eyes. Make a black cat by painting the can black and gluing felt ears, whiskers, nose, eyes and mouth to the can. Frankenstein can be made with green, black and purple felt. Get creative with your designs.
  
  

Planters

• Paint your tin can and use it as a planter.ULTRA F/Photodisc/Getty Images
  
  Used tin cans become useful as small planters. A little paint and creativity can turn an ordinary tin can into a fun Halloween planter. A can painted white with black eyes and a black oval-shaped mouth becomes a ghost planter. Paint a tin can orange and add black triangular eyes and nose along with a toothy grin to make a pumpkin planter. Holes can be punched in the bottom of the can for drainage.