tutorial: hanging jar lanterns!

a little tutorial on how to make lovely recycled hanging lanterns and planters.

Begin by gathering your supplies.
You will need:
1. A wire cutter (Make sure it has a blade for steel if you use steel wire)
2. A roll of wire (I used 26g jewelry wire for some, 10g wire for others, and green floral wire to give different look to a few of my lanterns)
3. A cleaned out glass jar with a lip (usually any jar that originally had a lid will have a lip on top)
4. If using thick wire, you might also need needle nose pliers.
5. Upside down Crate and Barrel box as a work surface and cat helpers are not necessary but offer an added touch of fun!


Unroll your wire and cut off a length. I didn't measure my lengths but they were all about as long as my two hands could stretch apart. It is fun to use different lengths if you are making a bunch of these.



Your length of wire should look like this:



Holding both ends of the wire, loop it just under the top lip of the jar. If you are using a very thin or floral wire, you may want to loop it twice:



Cross one side over the other:



Twist the wire together as if you are twisting one of those trash bag or produce bag ties shut (If you are using a very thick wire you may need to use the pliers for this step):



Twist it at least 2 or 3 times:

Here is the fun part: you can either keep twisting it in the same fashion until the entire length of wire is all twisted up together, or you can go the easy way! Pick up your wire in one hand and spin the jar with your other hand:



Keep spinning it in the same direction until all of the wire is twisted together. This takes a couple of twists and your cat may or may not get really excited.

Finished wire should look like a simple braided wire:



Take the free end of the newly twisted wire and loop it around the to the other side of the jar:



Now the tricky part: you need to wiggle this wire through that original loop of wire, which is under the lip of the jar. It might take a few tries to get it under there:

Now you need to twist these two wires together to secure it. Just twist the free end around the handle of twisted wire:



Twist it up as far as it will go and then trim any loose ends:



YAY! YOU DID IT! You now have a recycled jar lantern or planter. I have also been hanging these in my office to hold supplies. The possibilities are endless.

project: backyard party !

the plan for our rehearsal dinner has once again changed direction. we originally wanted to throw a backyard party, an ultra-casual gathering at our neighbors house. then i noticed our lovely tree. and our cute fence. and i decided we had the time and resources to get our (rented) backyard nice and cleaned up before the wedding. we are now looking at a scaled down version of a rehearsal dinner, in our tiny backyard. still super casual, still in a yard, just smaller and a bit more personal. hopefully, this will be the last change, i want to send out invites by the end of the month!

in preparation for the event we have been working hard to get our landscaping sorted out. when we moved into our house (a year ago this month!) our landlord promised some yard work come springtime. we are well into summer and that work never happened. now i get to decide.. do i call him up and bother him about his promise? or just go ahead and lay down some rocks and pathways myself? he said we can do whatever we want to the space while we are waiting for him.. and we have been waiting a long time.

we spent the last two weekends raking, pulling weeds, and planting. we started a small garden, and i turned half of my hanging lanterns into hanging planters.

the begining of our small garden. basil, peppers, chives. also, our many baby succulents for other wedding purposes!

votive candle lanterns and hanging planters. next weekend we plan to have the entire length of fence finished.

baby succulents!

lovely lovely hanging planter from ikea. a great deal at $10 (marked down from $30) we plan to pick up a few more this week.

project: jar lanterns !

b and i finally got around to our lantern-jar project this evening. we made a (small) dent in the 100-ish jars we have collected. we managed to make twenty hanging jars in about twenty minutes. we plan on making the rest as soon as i soak the labels off. which means the dinner dishes need to get done, so i can use the sink. if only those dishes would do themselves.

hanging in our lovely tree, beside my favorite windchime.

and again.

on our fence. i put all of the nails at the same level, but the wires are all different lengths. i love the effect!

project: weddingroom !

about a month into our engagement (that would be january 2009 for those of you who don't have our engagement date memorized) i decided to start saving all of the jars that come through our kitchen. first i saw a tutorial on how to make jars into hanging laneterns, just like martha. then i saw some lovely drip candles in amber colored bottles, so i started saving those as well. i rinse them all, take off the loose labels, and stick them in the "weddingroom" which is an "out of sight, out of mind" type of place that holds all things wedding and was a complete disaster.

the jars will be used to hold fresh herbs, thin bread sticks and tea lights at the wedding. the rest will be turned into hanging lanterns for the outdoor rehearsal dinner. they still need to be soaked and washed and scrubbed and de-labeled and wired and hung, but that won't happen for a few months.

last weekend i decided it was time to really start working on invitations, so the wedding mess was all cleared up and it is now a wedding workshop. and the invitation project is running smoothly!

five months worth of jarred eating!

i really should take some "after" photos to prove that the space really is clean and workable, but you will just have to trust me.

also, it would appear that we eat a lot of jarred food. you would be correct in assuming that from the above photo. in my defense, there are a lot of applesauce-for-the-preschoolers jars in there. and we really, really like the garlic chipotle salsa from trader joes. and marinara sauce. and rogue stout! don't judge!