Silly, I know.

Occasionally I do embarrassing things. My projects frequently take me by surprise, really they do. One moment I'm planning on getting caught up on the laundry, and suddenly I find myself painting a trash can instead.

But let me explain. There are reasons actually. It hit me like a thunderbolt today . . . why the heck do I have a miniature garbage can in my kitchen? Seriously. I have five children after all. We can and do generate a lot of trash. My poor long-suffering son takes it out every ten minutes throughout all his waking hours. And even then I usually have a horrible, despicable, abominable mess of a garbage can with 6 cereal boxes ballooning out the top, and then someone decides to scrape the spaghetti on top rather than inserting a new bag. And then it drools down the side of the can. And then noodles petrify to the floor behind it. It's truly evil. And you don't even want to know what the inside of the can looks like. Beneath the bag there lurks a festering . . . oh nevermind. It's too horrible. Today was my tipping point - don't ask me why. I had planned on doing other things.

But sometime after lunch something snapped. I popped to the hardware store and purchased a 30 gallon can. Definitely more our speed. That way maybe Knox can scale back to taking the trash out maybe only once a day. I don't know at what point it crossed my mind that it would be cuter if it was blue. I mean really. Obviously the thing can't fit under the sink - it's basically going to be the focal point of the room since it's so epically rhinormous. So why not blue? I already had the paint and a can of metal primer . . . which clearly seemed like guidance.

And then . . . well I should explain the fabric bit.
You know how the bag slips down inside the can? And then the spaghetti scrapers manage to fire the remnants of sauce straight down inside that gap? And then it turns black and nasty on the inside of the can? Here is my solution. (Shout out to my sister who I think was actually the originator of this idea . . . we were on the phone chatting about garbage woes while I was in the hardware store purchasing the can, and somewhere in the conversation this idea emerged.) A tight elastic band which cinches down over the bag, theoretically holding it clamped and impervious to the crazed spaghetti scrapers. The elastic is the key feature - the fabric is just for fun. (Sort of like a scrunchy. But never tell anyone I said that. Scrunchies make my "Top 10 Regrets from Junior High" list, along with wearing two pairs of colored socks and Keds with no laces. And this isn't actually "scrunchy" - it's nice and streamlined and flat.)

Before you all roll your eyes about getting the spaghetti all over the fabric, allow me to reassure you that this is the laminate version! Wahoo! Completely wipe-off-able.

(Update! Full instructions can be found here.)