Craft Lesson #1: Make your own jar lanterns

It's summer. everyone loves to have some outdoor barbies and some drinks in the backyard, but what will you do when it gets dark? do you have outdoor lighting? No?! Never Fear! you can make your very own recycled lanterns.

All you need is:

• an old jar (try and get fido jars as they have metal around the top to tie your string/rope to)
• sand
• tea light candle
• brown string/twine/fine rope

How to make them:

• Firstly, take off the lid of the jar. If you squeaze the metal holding it on, it makes it easier to get off. Keep the lid though because if you're not going to use the lanterns for a while, it's handy to put the lids back on to stop bugs and spiders making a cosy home. 
• Keep the metal on the jar so you have something to tie the twine to.
• For small jars i doubled up on the twine (pictured below) just to make sure it would be strong enough
• For larger jars i plaited three pieces of twine together to make sure it was EXTRA strong so no one would get K.O'd by a falling lantern.
• Tie this to the metal on each side of the jar.
• Put a dabble of glue on each knot to make sure it doesn't come un-ravelled.
• Fill jars about one third of the way with sand
• add a tea light candle

And you are DONE! a very adorable hand made recycled power free lantern.
If you tend to get eaten by the mozzies, why not put in a small citronella candle intead?

Make as many or as little as you like, they always look super cute. I think grouping lanterns in three's and having them on the ground around the garden path also looks just as good.