Solar Firefly Jars

These jars remind me of catching fireflies when I was a kid.  We would catch them in our hands and then put our "prey" into jars to watch their little florescent bottoms blink off and on in the twilight.

The tiny little bulb of the solar light looks like a firefly's tailend.

I am "kopy katting" this idea from Dawn at Creative Cain Cabin. I thought her idea was so creative.  When I saw some solar yard lights on sale at Hobby Lobby, I decided to give them a try.  The lights on sale were smaller than the ones Dawn used so I got a smaller jars also. 

(In case you didn't click over to Dawn's link, she took the stem off of a solar path light and glued the business end of the light onto the top of a mason jar.)

The lights I found were marked down to $1.80 each. The jars were half off that day so they ended up being $.65 each. The total for each solar jar was $2.45. 

There are three main parts to the lights and they disassemble easily. They also reassemble easily so you can play with different looks. 

See the little light near the top of the jar?
Doesn't it look like a firefly's bottom?

I had seen some cute old-timey zinc-looking mason jar lids on Etsy so I tried to mimic those too in order to cover up the stars on my solar lights.  I painted a coat of grey on first.  Be sure not to cover the solar panel up with paint.

When that was dry, I put on dry-brush coat of pearlized white.

I was actually hoping to find a bottle of silver but I got tired of looking in the bottomless pit I call my "box of craft paints".

Let the tops sit outside and soak up some sun.  I left the jars under the tops while they were "sunning" so the little bulb would not get damaged.  Dawn hot-glued her tops onto the jars.  I'm still experimenting so I have not attached the tops.  

When it gets dark, the jars begin to glow all on their own. 
A candle in a mason jar looks great but you can't leave a candle unattended due to safety precautions. The solar powered jars may come in handy for certain occasions. 

Shaky picture of jars in the grass to show amount of  light shed by each type jar I experiemented with



Jar with solar cap and cone

  Dawn had said in her post that the cone could be removed, so I tried that since I was not "in love" with the cone.  But the cone does serve the purpose of diffusing the light which you lose by taking it out. 

Jar with solar cap only

I also tried crumpled up (wrapping paper type) cellophane in hopes of diffusing the light but not having an obvious cone hanging down in the jar.  The little bulb did not get hot so it never made the cellophane in the jar hot either. 

Jar with solar cap and cellophane 

I photographed these jars sitting on a white surface so you can evaluate the different light patterns that are cast by the jars.  

Outside

Inside

Here are bird's eye views of the patterns...

...and to be fair, here is the fun pattern of the cone before it was encased in a mason jar...

I did take the jars to a very casual party and sat them on a table to see what they would do on a table in an entertaining situation. 

 Before dark, they looked just like mason jars with a cone hanging down in them...not all that attractive.  We left the party before they started to glow very well (and of course I brought them back home with me) so that I don't have a good "mason jars partying" picture.

Which type jar filler (or not) do you like best?

What is another type "filler" that would diffuse the light in the jar but be attractive? 

                 I'm sharing this at Metamorphasis Monday (the jars were transformed weren't they?) at

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and

Making the World Cuter Monday

http://makingtheworldcuter.blogspot.com/2011/07/making-world-cuter-monday_10.html

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