How to Make Dried Flower Candle Jar Lanterns (Pressed Flower Crafts)
Whether you’re looking for cute and easy homemade gift ideas, or simply in the mood for a pretty little craft project, these beautiful pressed flower jar lanterns fit the bill. Come along and learn how to make dried flower candle holders using glass jars and pressed flowers, ferns, or leaves. For an evening garden party, table centerpiece, or simply around the house – they add a whimsical pop of nature and ambiance to any space!
This tutorial will walk you through the supplies needed and easy step-by-step process to make pressed flower candle lanterns, including several different styles and hanging tips. Using recycled jars and natural materials, this pressed flower craft project is a great opportunity to be creative, thrifty, and sustainable!
Learn how to press flowers in our detailed beginner’s guide.
Would you like to save this?
We'll email this post to you, so you can come back to it later!
Disclosure: Homestead and Chill is reader-supported. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
RELATED: Looking for more DIY gift ideas? Pop over to this Homemade Holiday Gift Guide for over 27 fun and easy eco-friendly crafts, edible gift ideas, mason jar gifts, and more.
The best jars or containers to make pressed flower candle holders
Pickle jars, salsa jars, olive jars… oh my! Plain jars with smooth straight sides work best to make dried flower candle lanterns. Though some pressed flowers have a little bend to them, most are fairly stiff and brittle, and therefore apply best to flatter surfaces.
Choose jars that have a wide mouth opening, making it easy to add and light a candle inside. Re-use old jars, hurricanes, or glass candle holders you already have around the house. Or, pick some up at a local thrift store! These 12 oz candle jars are also a great option, or these nice 8 oz jars with bamboo lids. Avoid using thin brittle glass that might not be heat safe.
Tip: If you’re using a recycled jar, citrus essential oils can help remove old sticky jar labels. Peel off as much of the label as you can first. Then add a few drops of orange or lemon essential oil to the sticky residue area, and let it sit for a few minutes. You’ll be amazed at how much easier it scrubs off with a sponge and hot soapy water thereafter!
Supplies Needed
- Glass jars or hurricanes. Plain glass jars or containers with a wide opening and smooth straight sides work best. Choose something that can easily fit a tealight candle or votive candle inside.
- Pressed flowers, leaves, ferns, herbs, or other dried botanicals – which you can press yourself or buy online. (See quick tips below, or our complete guide on pressing flowers here.) For this project, I used some of my own dried flowers and ferns from the garden, but also got one of these cute pressed flower kits online. The petite size of the flowers is perfect for this particular pressed flower craft. They come in many different color options, and one package is enough to decorate several jars!
- Mod Podge (matte). We use a biodegradable DIY cornstarch glue for our pressed flower pumpkins (so they can be eaten or composted after), but it’s washable and kind of sticky. Since a more permanent application is desirable for the dried flower candle holders, I recommend using classic Mod Podge here!
- A small craft paint brush or sponge brush.
- Tweezers (optional) – a big help for handling and applying the dried flowers to the jars.
- Twine or wire (optional) – such as jute twine, string, ribbon, plain or or coated wire to wrap around the top of the jar and/or hang your dried flower lantern. A minimum of 18 gauge wire recommended to hold it’s shape under the weight of the jar.
- Candles – such as petite tealights, votive candles, or battery operated candles. I personally prefer non-toxic unscented beeswax candles, like these beeswax tealight candles or these beeswax votive candles.
How to Press Flowers for Jar Candle Lanterns
Popular flowers to press and dry include cosmos, violas, pansies, daisies, asters, poppies, calendula, petite roses, scabiosa, and more. Small flat flowers tend to work better on pressed flower jars than larger thick ones. Dry ferns, herbs, and small colorful fall leaves look awesome on candle lanterns too!
Over the summer, I collected and pressed flowers and herbs from the garden in my wood and paper flower press to save for various pressed flower crafts. However, flowers and leaves take a couple weeks to dry in a classic press, so this option takes some patience and planning in advance.
To instantly press your own flowers or leaves, consider using a microwave flower press. This microwave press kit presses and dries flowers, leaves, herbs or other plant material in minutes. It also offers superior color retention compared to traditional slow pressing. The quick turnaround time and bright colors is ideal for pressed flower craft projects and DIY gifts! In fact, I plan to invest in one soon.
Instructions: How to Make Pressed Flower Candle Jars
- Get all of your supplies ready. Mod Podge dries fast, so you’ll want to have everything you need available for quick assembly. I even lay out and arrange some of the dried flowers in advance, so I have a rough idea of where I want them on the jar.
- Using a petite paint brush or sponge brush, apply a thin layer of mod podge to a small area of the jar to decorate first. Again, the glue dries fast, so it’s best to work in small sections instead of coating the whole jar upfront. I typically avoid gluing the top rim area of the jar, leaving it clean and easy to handle the jar while I work.
- Apply dried flowers to the jar (or ferns, herbs, or leaves), pressing them into the wet glue. Tweezers help a lot here! If part of the flower wants to stick up, don’t worry. It should be easy to get it to stay down as the glue partially dries and becomes more tacky.
- Next, gently paint a layer of mod podge on top of the flower(s). If a flower is thick and full, you may need to get a little mod podge between the petals to glue them down on top of one another.
Instructions continued…
- Continue working your way around the jar, applying mod podge and flowers in sections. Depending on your style and amount of flowers available, you can add dried flowers just along the lower half of the jar (like they’re growing “up” from the bottom), on the front face only, or dotted all around the jar. All options look beautiful!
- Once the jar is decorated with pressed flowers to your liking, apply a final thin layer of mod podge glue all over the jar (including areas where there aren’t any flowers) to make it even and match. This will give the pressed flower candle lantern a pretty frosted appearance.
- Once it’s dry, you can adorn the top of your dried flower candle jar with twine or ribbon if you wish. When adding twine, I like to wrap it around several times to create a thicker band before tying it in a bow. See tips on how I created a hanging lantern with wire below.
- Now add a candle and enjoy your beautiful DIY pressed flower lantern! Or, bundle them up together with a set of natural beeswax tealight candles to give away as thoughtful homemade gifts.
Hanging dried flower candle jars
If you plan to hang your flower jar lanterns with real candles, it’s best to use wire instead of twine. (You know, so the twine doesn’t catch on fire.) Or, stick to battery-operated candles if you’d like to use twine!
Hanging jars with twine
To hang mason jars with twine, wrap it around the rim of the jar, create a loop over the top for hanging, and tie everything very tight. It may be best to secure the string with glue (e.g. all purpose glue or hot glue) so it can’t slip off. Or, check out this neat tutorial on how to make a macrame-style hanging mason jar sling with thicker twine.
Hanging jars with wire
See the photos of my hanging flower candle jars below. I used pretty coated 18 gauge steel wire that we already had around the house. Ironically, it was leftover from making hanging jar lanterns for our backyard over a decade ago! I like the thicker look of it, and how it holds shape despite the weight of the jar.
- First, I looped the wire snugly around the top of the jar (tucked under the threaded lip or rim) and twisted it around itself to hold it tight in place.
- I left a nice long piece curved over the top, long enough to secure to the opposite side as a handle. There, I twisted the wire tightly around itself again to secure the other end of the handle (with the help of pliers).
- Finally, I wrapped the remaining free end of the wire back around the jar rim again and secured it on the initial side.
- Now the dried flower candle jar is ready to securely hang from a shepherd’s hook, string, or other.
- Here is another simple tutorial on how to hang mason jars with wire if that was confusing!
And that’s how to make dried flower candle jar lanterns!
Well friends, I hope you enjoy this pressed flower craft project just as much as I do. I can’t wait to give away a few as homemade gifts for the holidays this season! Please let me know if you have any questions in the comments below, or just pop in to say hi. If you found this to be inspiring and useful, please consider pinning or sharing this post, or leave a review below! If you’re looking for other things to do with pressed flowers, try our botanical dried flower pumpkin project in the fall.
Or, see some of our other favorite sustainable handmade gift ideas here:
- Holiday Stovetop Potpourri Mason Jar Recipes (Free Printable Gift Tag)
- How to Make DIY Fruit & Veggie Stamped Tea Towels
- How to Make a DIY Rice Heating Pad (or Cold Pack) in 6 Easy Steps
- Sourdough Granola Recipe (Discard or Active Starter) with Fermented Option
- DIY Bath Salts Recipe: Beautiful Natural Herbal Bath Salts
- Sweet & Salty Rosemary Roasted Mixed Nuts Recipe
- Natural Lip Balm Recipe: How to Make Homemade Lip Balm
- How to Make Blown Egg Ornaments
DIY Pressed Dried Flowers Candle Jar Lanterns
Ingredients
- Glass jars or candle hurricanes. Plain glass jars or containers with a wide opening and smooth straight sides work best.
- Pressed flowers, leaves, ferns, herbs, or other dried botanicals – which you can press yourself or buy online
- Matte mod podge
- A small craft paint brush or sponge brush.
- Tweezers (optional) – helpful for handling and applying the dried flowers to the jars.
- Twine or wire (optional) – such as jute twine, string, ribbon, plain or or coated wire to decorate the top of the jar and/or hang it. A minimum of 18 gauge wire recommended to hold it’s shape under the weight of the jar.
- Candles – such as petite tealights, votive candles, or battery operated candles. I personally prefer non-toxic unscented beeswax candles, like these beeswax tealight candles or these beeswax votive candles.
Instructions
- Get all of your supplies ready. Mod Podge dries fast, so you’ll want to have everything you need available for quick assembly.
- Using a petite paint brush or sponge brush, apply a thin layer of mod podge to a small area of the jar to decorate first. Again, the glue dries fast, so it’s best to work in small sections instead of coating the whole jar upfront.
- Apply dried flowers to the jar (or ferns, herbs, or leaves), pressing them into the wet glue.
- Next, gently paint a layer of mod podge on top of the flower(s).
- Continue working your way around the jar, applying mod podge and flowers in sections.
- Once the jar is decorated with pressed flowers to your liking, apply a final thin layer of mod podge glue all over the jar (including areas where there aren’t any flowers) to make it even and match. This will give the pressed flower candle lantern a pretty frosted appearance.
- Once it’s dry, you can adorn the top of your dried flower candle jar with twine or ribbon if you wish. See tips on how I created a hanging lantern with wire in the body of this post.
- Now add a candle and enjoy your beautiful DIY pressed flower lantern! Or, bundle them up together with a set of natural beeswax tealight candles to give away as thoughtful homemade gifts.
Deanna Talerico
Deanna Talerico (aka DeannaCat) is a garden educator and writer with over 15 years experience in organic gardening. She is a retired Senior Environmental Health Specialist, and holds a M.A. in Environmental Studies and B.S. in Sustainability and Natural Resources.
2 Comments
Emma
Hi! I’ve done a similar craft in the past using mod podge to stick fake fall leaves to mason jars but the leaves just wouldn’t stick! For this craft did you run into similar issue? I want to order pressed flowers off of amazon but I’m just worried I’ll run into the same problem
Aaron (Mr. DeannaCat)
Hi Emma, the leaves or flowers need to be a similar size to the surface you are trying to adhere to as it can be difficult to get the leaf or flower to lay flat if portions of it extend around the edge of the surface. The mod podge will become more tacky if you brush some of before adding your flowers or leaves which can help the items stick better as well. For this craft idea and the way we did it, we didn’t have any issues in that regard. Hope that helps and good luck!