top of page

explore more here!

Turn an aluminum can into a NIGHT LIGHT/JEWELRY ORGANIZER

  • Xinru Li
  • Mar 11, 2017
  • 3 min read

Are you tired of rifling through your jewelry box to untangle a bracelet? Are you in possession of a night light? These two topics have nothing to do with each other but here's a way to turn an aluminum can into both a night light and a jewelry organizer! This way you don't have to buy either of those! It would also look really nice if you hang it on your vanity ^.^

difficulty level: annoying but not hard

time required: 20 minutes

materials needed: aluminum can, scissors (letter opener/ xacto knife recommended), sharpie/pen, tape, string, electric candle, jewelry

So how do you make it?

Clean out your aluminum can.

1) Using a sharpie, mark the can into 8 pieces (like a pizza)- these would be where each organizer section is. Then turn each marker into two markers (so in the end you'll have 16 markers).

Put the sharpie at the middle of the can and turn the can, this will allow you to draw a perfect circle along the middle. Extend each marker to the middle of the can so you get 16 stripes.

2) Using your cutting utensil (here is where letter openers and facto knives would work better than scissors), cut out every other stripe so they become rectangles with bases attached to the base of the can.

This is where the annoying part comes in, because they're really hard to cut! A tip for you is to cut out the top flap first with your xacto knife, then trace the length with your knife so you make a small indent where you're supposed to cut the rest of the rectangle. Then take the flap you made and pull along the indent, which should rip cut/rip the rectangle nicely.

To make the jewelry organizer part, fold the rectangle you cut out to create a little hook (as demonstrated on the pictures), then you can hang your jewelry on that!

3) Warning! Cut aluminum cans are sharp! So be careful! To avoid cutting yourself against the can, wrap tape on the flap and all the other cut edges. Here, if you want to make your light/jewelry holder look prettier, you can use pretty washi tape or ribbon.

4) To hang the light/jewelry organizer, the tab of the can makes a perfect hole to loop a string with, then you can hang it on your vanity (and in my case, my door handle).

5) To make the night light part, insert an electric candle inside the can by squeezing it in between the aluminum columns. The gaps in the columns make it really easy to turn it on/off.

And you're done!!

Other tips you can try:

- spray paint the can before making this to make it look prettier (which I don't recommend because fumes)

- instead of putting a fake candle, you can basically put anything inside you want, so if you don't want this to become a jewelry organizer, putting a small hanging plant on it and hang it on your porch would look nice too! (but if you do that please attach a picture in the comments because i wanna see)

A video tutorial of everything I make on this site would now be available on my Facebook page (@tangerinelights) and I recently made a Youtube Channel to document everything I make, so follow that for updates/if you're too lazy to read ^.<

If you have any questions/comments/ or if you made this and would like to show off its awesomeness, put it in the comments below!

Have an idea of your own? Share it with us!

Follow my journey!

  • White Facebook Icon
  • White Instagram Icon
  • White Pinterest Icon
  • White Twitter Icon
  • White YouTube Icon

© 2017 by Tangerine Lights. 

bottom of page