That was a good idea to incorporate the poison ivy into the picture!
As far as the nitty gritty basics, it looks to me like there’s a bit of motion blur in the shot. A look at the Exif data shows that the shutter speed was 1/30, which is really too slow, unless your camera is mounted on a tripod. The shot does seem to be in focus, but the there’s just a general lack of clarity as a result of motion blur and noise from the tiny CCD sensor. My advice would be: Try to stabilize your camera somehow, a tripod would be great, but not necessarily essential. I have used lot’s of things for stabilizing my camera! A rock, a brick, your camera bag… anything that you can set your camera on so that you don’t jiggle it when you take the shot. I’m afraid you don’t have many options with regards to the noise, I doubt your camera lets you choose your ISO speed, but if you can, set it on ISO 100. Since you’re stabilizing it anyway, the shutter speed isn’t as important.
All that said, if you’re just sending a resized version in an e-mail, 99% of people won’t even be able to tell the difference. Much more important is the “creative and winsome” composition.
As far as composition is concerned, the first thing I would try would be to get down low. In this instance, your camera would need to be practically resting on the ground. Something else you could try would be to set your can on a table with a sprig of ivy beside it, and try a product shot. Just pay close attention to the background, it can make or break the image. If you’re looking for a “natural” product shot, you could try to find an old stump and set up on that.
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