Last year I made lanterns of tin cans, and since my blog died last summer and all content disappeared I show them again this year.
The votives are simple to make, all you need is the empty cans, a nail, a hammer and possibly.
Begin by washing canning jars and remove the labels. Fill the jars with water and freeze them. The reason that you freeze the jars is that you do not have to take care not to crush the cans. When the jars are frozen, use a hammer and a nail and nail holes in the cans in the pattern you want. If you want to be able to hang these lanterns, nails holes in the top of the jar on each side and use steel wire as handle. It may be that the cans got a bump at the underside caused by ice, but then you only take the hammer and beat the bulge.
The lanterns are fine to use as they are, but I wanted to fix mine further and painted them. I used the Martha Stewart Craft Paint and first painted cans black. Then I painted over with Crackle paint and let it dry thoroughly. Top-painted, I then color Summer Linen and then I got this effect. Note that the top layer of paint must be deleted out right quickly it starts to fall apart almost immediately, trying to paint twice in the same place so the effect will be much worse.
