I was searching online and stumbled upon Sun Jars made by a company in the UK. I thought it was a great idea and I decided to see if I could make them myself.

I found several great sites that provide a tutorial on how to make them (Instructables, not martha, cinemazement), I tweaked the process a little and would like to share the idea with you. A completed jar may cost around $10-$15, less if you have some of the components to recycle, a little more if you need to buy the parts and supplies.


How to make homemade Sun Jars:

Components:


1. Old jars ($0-$8). Any jar with a lid will do, a preference may be to use old jars around the house or ones with the old fashioned metal clamp lids from your basement or a yard sale. Others have also listed IKEA as a great place to go to purchase jars if you do not have any to recycle.

2. Solar Light Fixture ($5 plus shipping). This may sound complicated, but its really an easy thing to acquire. You can purchase just the little solar panels, light, and rechargeable battery fixture from a few outdoor light manufacturers online, like this one. Buying just the component is highly recommended to avoid spending extra money and creating waste, but if you really can't wait for shipping, you could purchase a simple solar light from your local hardware store and just remove the solar fixture ($10-$15).

3. Some sort of glue or epoxy that works with glass ($3). Make sure it lists glass as a bonding surface, some glues and super glues simply will not work.

4. Glass frosting spray($3). We picked this up at home depot, very easy to use just like spray paint.


Instructions:


1. Frost the inside of the jars:

• We decided to frost the inside so it would not peel or chip off on the outside. It makes for a more durable jar.
  

• Detach lid from the jars, and cover the outside of the jar with something so it does not get frosting spray on it.

• Spray the inside of the jar evenly. Avoid too much spray and causing it to pool at the bottom. Two coats of spray, each after a half day of drying worked well for us.

• While the spray coats are drying, attach the solar panel components to the underside of the lid using the epoxy or some other means of getting it to stay. Note: We charged the rechargeable battery first to give it a boost right out of the box, you may want to do the same.

• Try to center the LED light at the middle of the jar lid.
  

• After the jar is dry, reattach the lid and test out the jar.

• When the solar panel receives light, the resulting voltage turns off the light and charges the battery via the simple circuitry inside. When the panels are covered or it is sufficiently dark, the light turns on using the stored energy in the battery.

• We came up with a short poem (you can use it if you would like) to print and attach with a small piece of ribbon explaining how the jar works.

5. That's It!

As you can see it's pretty simple, doesn't take much time, and can be done very cheaply, especially if you have some of the components laying around already. There is plenty of room to improvise so look around the house and see how you can tweak the process to make it even better.