Joy Tin Can Luminaries

Joy Tin Can Luminaries are an easy and free Christmas Decor craft.

I love rustic, simple home decor. And though I don’t need any more home decor (the woes of a small home), I do enjoy making new things. This year for Christmas, I decided to make tin can luminaries that say JOY to change up my Christmas decor.

These luminaries are really easy to make, and don’t require much craft knowledge.

One of the tools I used to make these was a quick clamp. This is one tool that my husband thinks everyone should own. He uses his all the time! It’s like having a second pair of hands, and you can easily engage the clamp with one hand. They come in all different sizes, and several different brands, but Dan recommends the Craftsman ones, and he has several different sizes because he loves them that much!

To Make Joy Tin Can Luminaries You’ll Need:

3 Empty tin cans that have been washed
Nail
Hammer
Newspaper
Vice or clamp to hold the can still (or a person who trusts you not to hit them with the hammer!)
Spray paint, if desired
Tea lights

Stuff the tin cans with newspaper to make them not collapse when you hammer them.

Clamp the can in the vice or clamp, making sure not to tighten it too much, or you’ll bend the can.

Draw the letters on, or just eyeball it (that’s what I did).

Using the nail, hammer the nail in at even spaces to form the letter. The larger the nail, the bigger the holes will be. This makes more light shine through, but also makes the can more apt to dent.

After you’ve got all the letters finished, you can either leave them plain or spray paint them.

Initially, I wanted to see if I could make the cans rust, so I put a can in apple cider vinegar for a day, but it didn’t rust. Dan (my welding husband) explained that cans are no longer tin, and actually galvanized. Too bad he didn’t tell me that before I wasted a day and a bunch of apple cider vinegar!