Making Canning Jar Lamps

Find a canning jar and things to fill it up with. Most canning jar lamp makers prefer to pick a theme for their project. For example, you could fill up your canning jar with seashells for an aquatic theme or with colorful rocks as a present for an amateur geologist. Choosing heavier objects will make for a heavier, more stable lamp.

Set up the actual lamp mechanism. One of the best ways to do this is to buy a canning jar lamp kit like the one linked to below. It comes with a lamp already mounted in a lid, with the cord running out of the side of the lid. This kit costs not much more than a do-it-yourself lamp kit, saving you a lot of work.

If you opt to buy a do-it-yourself kit, you will have to make a hole for the lamp to fit in. Use tin snips to cut a hole big enough to fit the lamp assembly in. Solder the cord onto the assembly and wrap the connections in electrical tape to keep them from contacting the lid and shorting out. You could drill a hole in the side of the can, but the easiest method is just to run the cord out of the same hole the lamp is fixed in. Finally, use epoxy to hold everything in place inside the lid and screw the top on.

Resources

• Canning Jar Lamp Kit