I love the twinkle and sparkle of Christmas and am a total fairy light addict but there is nothing quite like the soft glow and gentle glimmer of candle light. For this week’s Festive Friday I have been hammering tins again, this time making tin can lanterns to light up the dark Winter nights!

Tin Can Lanterns with tea lights.

I’ve been collecting pull top food cans for some time and may now have a ridiculous number however that doesn’t excuse Mr TS who thoughtlessly squashed TWO to put in the recycling last week! I have an image in my mind of the house and garden decorated with hundreds of these lovelies all twinkling away, wouldn’t they look amazing hanging from the branches of our apple tree?

After advice from fellow bloggers I filled the cans with water and popped them in the freezer before using them this time. This means when you are hammering on your design the can doesn’t buckle and bend; for last year’s lanterns I used a drill so this wasn’t a problem but this time I was in a hammering mood!

I invited my lovely friend Sue over for a cuppa and a bit of a bash and we spent a lovely couple of hours catching up and creating a bit of Christmas at the same time.

Hammering small holes into tin cans to make lanterns.

We mixed up a bit of free style hammering with some more controlled patterns having discovered that it is actually really tricky to hammer a free style star on to a ridged can. For the stars I drew around a cookie cutter onto tracing paper which we then held onto our cans and hammered through. We used nails to hammer small holes and it took some trial and error, we weren’t sure how they were going to look once they were lit – they didn’t look very inspiring in the daylight…

Tin cans with festive patterns made of small holes.

But, pop a tea light candle inside, turn the room lights down low and they really come into their own!

Tin lanterns shining in the dark.

Sue and I put our cans into the workbench and tightened it up gently so they didn’t get squashed but also didn’t move about. It’s a bit dangerous hammering a nail into a rolling object so, if you’re going to have a go, make sure your can is well secured. The workbench is still up in the kitchen because Bonus Boy is very keen to have a go – it’s going to keep us busy this weekend!

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