Try This: Baby Food Chandelier
This baby food jar chandelier has the all the charm of medieval ironwork—but it comes from the recycling bin.
May/June 2009
By Susan Wasinger
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This chandelier is crafted from humble materials. Aside from a few nuts and bolts, everything was either salvaged or recycled.
Photography By Susan Wasinger
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Lighten up the recycling
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This chandelier has all the charm of medieval ironwork—but it comes from the recycling bin. Used baby-food jars, a few yards of twisted wire, a couple repurposed barrel hoops and a length of rusty chain are all it takes to spark images of exotic locales. Powered by votive candles, the chandelier crackles with energy without drawing a single watt.
Materials
Tie wire (about 40 yards)
15 to 18 baby-food jars
15 to 18 votive or tealight candles
2 barrel hoops
6 eyehook bolts (black or rusty, if possible)
12 nuts to match the bolts
About 9 feet of lightweight chain (dark or rusty, if possible)
Large S-hook
Tools
Wire cutters
Needle-nose pliers
Jigsaw with metal-cutting blade for barrel hoops (if needed)
Clamp
Drill
Wrench
1. Measure and cut two 24-inch lengths of tie wire. Make a loop in the center of each wire. Place one loop over the neck of a baby food jar and tighten slightly. Then put the other loop over the neck in the opposite direction. Cinch down.
2. Pulling the loops tightly, twist the end wires around each other to secure the wire on the jar neck. Using needle-nose pliers, tighten loops.
3. Bend the lower wire on each side up so it shoots straight up from the jar. This wire should measure about 8 inches; cut if necessary. Bend the other two wires out horizontally from the jar. Cut these to be about 5 inches long.
4. Grab the tip of the vertical wire and curl it outward to form a spiral. The finished spiral should be about 1 inch across and have about three twists.
5. Spiral the shorter, horizontal wires to about the same size as the ones above, but curl them inward this time.
6. Repeat the spirals on the two remaining wires to make a symmetrical holder. You could stop here and use this wire-topped jar as the votive holder
shown above. To make the chandelier, repeat with all baby-food jars.
To create chandelier:
7. Cut a 20-inch piece of wire and make a loose loop in its center. Loop it over the two top spirals as shown.
8. With the pliers, make three tight twists at the loop’s neck. Create an oval about 3 inches long. Twist to close the oval, then make 12 to 14 twists in the two wires to create a 3-inch twisted section.