Introduction: Reuse Film Canisters: Popsicles

About: I'm Mikey!

Shooting with film is awesome. Having a ton of leftover film canisters cluttering up space isn't.

If you have a bunch of empty film canisters, you've probably asked yourself before:
"What should I do with all of these?"

In this Instructable, I'll be showing you how you can reuse empty film canisters to make popsicles.

Quick, easy, and there's no mess to clean up.

Step 1: Gather Your Essentials

The goods you will need to make these delicious popsicles are:
  • toothpicks, coffee stirring sticks, cake pop sticks, or anything else strong enough to hold up the popsicle
  • empty film canisters (as many as you'd like!)
  • duck tape
  • beverage of some sort (I'll be using Hubert's Raspberry Lemonade. This was not a mistake.)
  • clear plastic wrap
  • scissors

Step 2: Wash Your Canisters!

Some think that storing food or liquids in film canisters may expose you to the harmful chemicals that leak out of film and into the plastic of the canister. Kodak begs to differ.

via Kodak:

"To protect the film from contamination, Kodak quality standards require that the insides of the containers must be exceptionally clean. No “toxic” materials leach out or off gas from the containers themselves.

[...] Newspaper and magazine articles have mentioned “toxic residues” in the containers which might come from the film. There are none. The chemicals in a roll of film are embedded in the gelatin emulsion layers (about as thick as a human hair) and do not rub off the plastic film base.

[...] In summary: There are no “toxic residues” in Kodak film containers [...] if a customer chooses to use a Kodak film container for other than film storage, the container first should be thoroughly washed with soap and water."

With that being said, let's get to washing.
(don't forget the soap)

Step 3: Preparing the Canisters

After washing and drying your canisters, you're going to want to make sure that your stick(s) will be held up straight and that nothing falls over while in the freezer.

Place your canisters on some duck tape, making sure they all stay together in a group.
I'm making 10, so I'll make 2 columns of 5 canisters.

Use scissors to cut away the tape from the roll.

Step 4: Finishing Up

Now you're going to want to fill your canisters up with your selected beverage of choice.

Cover the tops of your canisters with clear plastic wrap, insert your sticks, then stick it in the freezer. You're almost done!

The freezing process depends on what drink you're using and what temperature you keep your fridge at.
Mine took about an hour and a half to make.

I was about to only use toothpicks for this Instructable, but Christy came into the room and we started talking about my project.
The next thing you know, I was running up the street to Starbucks to get coffee stirring sticks.

*** Don't use 1 toothpick per popsicle! The weight of the popsicle will most likely snap the toothpick in half, so use two or more.


There are 2 things you can do while waiting for your popsicles to freeze:

- Play the Waiting Game
or
- Have a staring contest with the popsicles until they're frozen. 
They tend to freeze slower with the freezer open, so you might have to squirm your way into there if you really want to win.

Step 5: You're Done!

Take your popsicles out and enjoy.