Archives for November 2012

I have a thing for mason jars. Big, small, new, old……..but the ones that really grab my heart are the blue jars. I have quite the collection these days. Some of them I got from my Grandma Peggy and some of them I have picked up here and there from garage sales, flea markets and thrift stores. The blue glass is just so pretty and soothing……I absolutely love them!

I have been wanting to turn several of the old blue jars into soap dispensers for about the last two years. I’ve seen some mason jar soap dispensers for sale and always thought they would go so perfectly with our cottage-style home. A couple months ago I finally mentioned my interest in this project to my husband thinking I could have him help me by drilling the hole in the top of the lids. But sometimes, I just get so impatient that I decided to take things into my own hands. A girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do, you know?

So, with that being said, there is probably a more correct way to do this project if you really know how to use a drill and a metal drill bit, but if you would prefer to just use basic tools, this tutorial is for you! Plus it will only take you 10 – 20 minutes.

Mark a hole with a sharpie in the center of the metal lid where you would like to put your soap dispenser.

The inside of the old metal lids have a ceramic lining inside. You need to remove this in order to make the hole for the soap dispenser. To remove the ceramic insert, just pound on it really hard with your screwdriver until it cracks. Once it cracks, the pieces come out really easily.

During this step I would recommend wearing safety glasses because the little ceramic pieces can fly up in the air and get into your eyes. But again, that is totally optional. Rinse out the inside of the lid once you have removed the ceramic pieces.

Now this next step is a little wild. You are going to take your screw driver and pound down on the little black mark that you made in the first step. I pounded about 4-6 times and then pushed down with all my might. You could also be a little less crazy and just take a hammer and hammer down on top of the screw driver to drive it through the center of the lid.

In the picture above, you can see how nicely the screwdriver will go through the top of the lid.

As you can see, the hole that was made from the screwdriver is not big enough to accomodate my soap dispenser, so I needed to make it larger. This soap dispenser top was from another store-bought hand soap bottle that we already had in the house. You could buy a fancier one or buy a plastic one at your local craft store.

If you are using a top from a bottle you already have, just make sure to pump out the soap and wash it out really well with warm water.

To make the hole in the metal lid larger, take your pliers and peel back the metal. This step is surprisingly easy. Just pull back the metal and check and see if your soap dispenser will fit. You want the fit to be very tight so that the top does not move around, so make sure you don’t pull back too much metal before testing the fit.

This step could also be done with a drill and a metal drill bit, but again, you want the fit to be very tight so make sure you don’t use a bit that is larger than the soap dispenser.

Fit your soap dispenser into the metal lid. Again, I can’t say it enough, but you really want to have to work the soap dispenser into the lid so it’s really tight. Since we pounded so much on the lid, you may just need to pop the top of the lid back out a little bit.

Fill the jar with your favorite hand soap, put the lid on top and enjoy!