Jack-O-Lantern Jar Candle Remake

8:23:00 PM


This is a craft fail…almost. The little jack-o-lantern that could.


I like to reuse random items…in case you couldn’t tell.

I have a bunch of jar candles around the house, and I’m on a kick to try to use some of them up. But what do you do with the jar when you’re done?



First: you need to get the remains of the candle out of the jar. How do you do that? Wiki How had several suggestions, but the tip that seemed least likely to cause me injury was….just put it into the freezer for an hour or two. It seriously just pops out. All I had to do was use a butter knife to chip at the disk of wax while it's cold so it would break up and get out of the neck of the jar.

Next: You need to get all of those silly labels off the jar. I happened to notice when I last had my handy-dandy can of WD-40 out to lube up a door that the can said it removed adhesive. So I sprayed the labels, and with a little bit of scrubbing, the adhesive came right off! I used some glass cleaner to get the last of the soot off, and voila, a clean jar.



And of course, the next step involves getting the jar messy again.

I wanted to have a translucent orange jar, so I took some homemade modge podge and mixed in some craft paint. 



I poured the mixture into the jar, swirled it around until I got good coverage, and then put it into a 175 degree oven (on waxed paper, of course) until dry (about 30 minutes). 



And then I did it a couple more times, until I got the opacity of orange I wanted. In hindsight, it might have been better if I had used some food coloring--but I kind of like the grainy look I ended up with.



I then took some black sharpies--an extra fine and an extra thick--and drew a jack-o-lantern face on the pumpkin I created. 


I colored the neck black to be a stem, and it was a cute little jack-o-lantern, but I still wanted it to light up.



I have this neat LED light , and I wanted to make a little jack-o-lantern nightlight with it. I disassembled a clearance solar light for this project. Big fail. It made the pumpkin look...green.

So I went back to the basics--and used a tea light candle.


In other words, I went through all of that to repurpose my jar candle...into a jar candle. Not my most efficient moment, I will admit. At least it's cuter, right?





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12 comments

  1. We did something similar to this with the kids last year and are collecting jars to do it again this year. Very cute. We used tempera paint last year and the results were mediocre and very drippy. I never thought about using modge podge (since I haven't ever really used it before). Do you have a recipe for your homemade modge podge? We are planning on doing enough to light our driveway on Halloween.

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    Replies
    1. Tricia, I found a recipe for homemade modge podge on pinterest, I think, but basically you mix half water and half white glue. Check on me, though.

      You have to be willing to do several coats or maybe up the ratio of color (either paint or food coloring) to modge podge to get the level of color dark enough. You can find a lot on pinterest if you look up "colored jars" or "antique blue jars." for more tutorials and better measuring. I just eyeballed it.

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  2. Hey Rachel...how have you been? That's a great tip of how to get the wax off the jar...I had no idea...:) great way to reuse....thank you so much for coming by our party...happy to see you again...talk to you soon...xo
    Lucy

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  3. Wow! This is great! I never would have thought to make a luminary that way. Thanks for the tip about getting wax out by freezing it. I will be using that tip in the future :)

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  4. Your pumpkin jar is so darned cute, cost efficient and looks easy to do. Gotta like that. I keep jars all the time now which makes hubs crazy,( hehehheheh, love it. We're together 24/7 folks, at home).
    Pretty darned cute and great idea to recyle a candle jar.
    So glad you shared this Fall craft. I've got a couple big enuf jars to make this with. I love to put fall candle projects on our front porch railing. Nobody else in our neighborhood ever decorates for any season except for Christmas but I enjoy it anyway even tho we're old folks (70 and 72). Helps to put a little color in our lives. Crafting rules. Happy Fall y'all.

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  5. It's definitely cuter and that's all that matters. :)

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  6. Cute idea! I may just try it. Stopping by from the Made U Look hop :)

    Jessica
    http://jessica-healthymommyhealthybaby.blogspot.com/2012/10/sweet-saturday-23-festive-fall-wreath_5.html

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  7. Hi there! I’m going to start hosting a weekly blog hop on Sundays on my blog, WTFab. I’m looking for 4 co-hosts each week, starting October 14th and was wondering if you’d be interested! It’ll be a fun way to gain more followers and make new blog friends. If you want to be a co-host, you can email me at: whatthefab@gmail.com

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  8. Ohhh.. this is perfect! I have a few candle jars that would make perfect jack o lanterns!

    Im featuring this at a Halloween roundup Wednesday :)

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  9. So cute! Would love if if you linked up on my blog hop www.w-t-fab.com/search/label/bloghop. Also let me know if you'd like to follow each other!

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  10. Hopping over from SITS. Very cute! I bet you could do that for other holidays...Like something with hearts for Valentines, something with holly for Christmas, 4 leaf clovers for St. Patty's Day, etc. Great idea. Thanks for sharing! :)

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