Mother's Day gifts: antique canning jar soap pumps

Now that I'm sure that my mom and MIL have received their gifts, I wanted to share with you what I did for Mother's Day for them this year. A few months ago I came across this pin on Pinterest (do you Pin? That needs to be another post entirely) and was determined to make one for myself.

http://theblissfullycontentlife.blogspot.com/2010/08/homemade-christmas-canning-jar-soap.html

I realized that they would make fun Mother's Day gifts, so I've been on the hunt for antique pint-sized blue glass canning jars. I know that the quart-size jars are usually pretty plentiful at antique stores, and I figured that the smaller ones would be easy to find as well. Boy, was I wrong! I went to one antique mall, one consignment store, and about six other antique stores with ZERO luck before I threw in the towel and went to my go-to giant antique mall on the other side of town. Even there, I really had to search for them, and they were more expensive than the larger quart jars!

For the pump portion, I purchased two bottles of Suave lotion because although they have a plastic pump, it's a nice matte silver color and I like how it looks with the zinc lid. I did look at Michael's to see if they sold pumps with the soap-making supplies, but they didn't have anything. I imagine you could also purchase a soap container from a thrift store or yard sale and just harvest the pump mechanism, but I was in a hurry so I went with what I knew would be easily available.

From there, it was easy! I traced the top of the lid on paper and cut out the circle, then folded it into fourths to determine the center. Using a hammer, I tapped a nail into the top of the lid to make a mark for the center.

The zinc lids for these old jars have a white glass insert that you have to remove so you can put the pump through. I flipped the lid so the inside was facing up, then put a paper napkin over the glass insert and gave it a gentle tap with my hammer. The insert broke, and I used a pair of needle-nose pliers to pull out the pieces and discard them.

I enlarged my pilot hole from the nail by using a Philips head screwdriver and my hammer; I just tapped the screwdriver gently until it went all the way through. I thought that would be big enough to slip the pump through, but then I looked closer at the pump and realized that the portion that needs to fit through the lid is wider than the stem. It's the part the pencil is pointing to in this photo:

To make the hole bigger, I used my needle-nose pliers again and basically jammed them through the hole and twisted. I don't have a photo of this very scientific and precise maneuver because I needed both hands to perform it, but it was easy. The metal lids are really soft and it only took a few twists to make the hole just big enough to fit the pump through. I wanted a snug fit so it would stand up straight, but I'm sure you could use some glue to stabilize the whole thing as well.


The last step was that I needed to trim the plastic stem, because the pint jars were shorter than the original lotion bottles. I just eyeballed the length and cut them with a regular pair of scissors. And then I was done! It honestly took me maybe 20 minutes, and that was because I had to figure out how to do it. I could make one in about 5 minutes now that I know what I'm doing. The hardest thing about the whole project was finding the darn jars!

To complete the gift, I used a pair of darling embroidered vintage flour sack towels that I found at an estate sale last summer. I rolled up each towel so that the embroidered picture was showing and tied it with pretty ribbon.  I searched and found this cute little poem called My Mother's Hands (which I admit I altered very slightly to make it more appropriate from a grown child's perspective). I printed it out on colored cardstock and slipped it around the dishtowel under the ribbon, and tied matching ribbons around the jar lids. I'm very happy with how they turned out; I know it's a gift I'd be tickled to receive!

I definitely want to make one (or more) of these for my own home, so I'll either have to get lucky and find more pint jars or break down and use the quart size. If you want to purchase your soap dispenser lid instead of MacGyvering one like I did, both Post Road Vintage and Midwest Finds are Etsy sellers who carry them. Now, wish me luck finding those pint jars!