DIY Mason Jar Lights

I saw a few posts on Facebook and Youtube about mason jar lights so I decided to make some out of some spaghetti jars I had been saving up. I figured why wouldn't spaghetti jars work just as well as mason jars and they were free.  The total cost of this project was about 3 dollars. I already had the craft glue, but it only costs a couple dollars, and you could probably even use "school" glue. 

This was my first try. I used spaghetti jars, tissue paper, craft glue, and Christmas tree lights. 

First I cleaned the jars and removed the labels and the glue from the jars.

I got the color tissue paper I wanted, which was about 97 cents at Wal-Mart for a pack of it. I picked a pack of tissue paper that had purple, pink, teal and white. I measured the jar and cut paper to fit around the jar. Next I tore some into small 1/2 inch strips. 

Next I watered down some craft glue. I use Aleene's Original Tacky Glue.

Now you are ready to cover your jars. While I used spaghetti jars, you can cover just about any glass jar. For my next project I used a small smooth surface jar, like the one below,

which you can buy at Wal-Mart for about 8 dollars for 12 of them.I used a small craft paint brush to coat entire jar with glue, laid the jar on the edge of the tissue paper and rolled it, so that the tissue paper would wrap around the jar. 

You might need to press the tissue paper down in spots. To do this I used my brush and a small amount of glue and very gently brushed spots that were not sticking well. 

You need to be very gentle with the tissue paper as it can rip easily when wet. 

Your jar will then look like this, 

After they have dried, can then either put lights in them, or you can take your 1/2 inch strips and using your glue and brush, lay them on the jar and simply "paint" over them with your glue mixture to make darker spots of color.

You can make them perfect spots or make them random spots of color. You can even take different color tissue paper and overlay over the white, or other colors to make different colors. Such as blue over yellow to make green, red over yellow to make orange. It might not come out a true orange, but more of a tint. 

After you have coated your jars as you wish, you can paint a message on them, a design, or even put stickers, or googly eyes. You could make ghost jars, with white tissue paper, then paint a mouth and eyes. You could do an orange jar and paint a jack o'lantern.

Use your imagination.
I took some small jars like the one above and made a set of Harry Potter themed lights. I printed off a small stained glass class emblems. I took those and laid them on the tissue coated jar and using an xacto knife very carefully cut out a spot in the tissue paper around the printed design. Then using my glue, glued them on, and covered over them to seal it on the jar. Using a puffy paint, I went around the edge to make it look like a frame. I also matched the tissue paper to match the house colors.

I took white tissue paper and coated two jars, and then thinned out some brown craft paint and painted over it, to make it look like parchment paper. I turned these jars into my Marauders Map jars. Using craft paint I painted "I solemnly swear I am up to no good" on one jar, and "Mischief managed" on the other. I took a small brush and painted foot prints like the map had on it. If only they moved like they did on the map.

I solemnly swear I am up to no good!

I took the other jars and tried to very carefully paint spells that I thought each house used the most. 

I then used a screwdriver to poke holes in the center of the lid, I used a tapered paint brush handle to make the hole big enough to push the Christmas lights through. Pushing about 5 lights per jar. You could simply get the icicle lights and push each icicle through the jar. This depends on whether you want lights showing between jars, or simply just lighted jars. You could also get battery operated tea lights and place in the jars and skip poking holes or pushing lights through lids altogether. 

This is what the finished product looks like. The spells can be seen better in person.

LIGHTS WHEN LIT

NOT LIT, OF COURSE, LOL.

You can also put the blinker light (The little light with a red tip) and make these lights sparkle.

Use your imagination, please feel free to comment if you have questions.