Yan Hong, a 33-year-old craftswoman from southwest China's Chengdu City, has been transforming used beverage cans into traditional Chinese-style jewelry and fashion ornaments.

She has made hundreds of ancient female head ornaments and costumes using aluminum cans, copper sheets, feathers and paper. The inspiration usually comes from costumes used in popular Chinese TV dramas and historical books. 

One of her best-known works is a Peking Opera phoenix coronet, made out of 18 ring-pull cans. It took her 13 days to design and prepare the pieces and two days to assemble. The video of her creation went viral on the country's Twitter-like Weibo in 2019.

Now an influencer with 770,000 followers on Bilibili, a leading video-sharing platform in China, and 72,000 followers on YouTube, she has received acclaim from people around the world.

In 2019, she was invited to deliver a speech at the University of Oxford. She also collaborated with a foreign designer for the Spring/Summer 2021 Milan Fashion Week, showcasing some of her creative ideas.

Since May 2021, Yan has been learning the traditional Chinese handicraft technique of filigree inlay from master Ni Chengyu, who's an inheritor of this national intangible cultural heritage. The technique, also known as fine gold art, dates back over 1,000 years and was mainly used for making jewelry for the royalty.

Yan said she aspires to bring this traditional craft to as many people as possible and popularize it overseas.