Here are a dozen bright ideas for using those adorable glass light bulb jars available at Hobby Lobby and Michaels. They make great gifts or party favors for all kinds of occasions. Many of the websites listed below also include free printable tags with clever “bright” sayings that are sure to “light up” your life.

Hobby Lobby carries two sizes of glass light bulb jars: 4-1/4″ high and 5-5/8″ high. They only cost $1.99 and $2.99 respectively, but they’re often on sale for 50% off. I bought a dozen of each recently and have been filling them with different candies depending on the holiday. The recipients are always delighted, especially since the light bulb jars are reusable. They’re also great for hostess gifts, teacher appreciation gifts, and graduation gifts. Check out some of these bright ideas:

My quilt guild is celebrating “The Year of the Rainbow” so I filled several light bulb jars up with six different colors of M&Ms for our upcoming anniversary party. Remember Roy G Biv? I skipped indigo and just used the 6 primary and secondary colors of M&Ms: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. (I had to buy a package of Easter M&Ms in order to get violet.) I plan to put one Rainbow M&M-filled light bulb jar in the middle of each table along with rainbow-colored flowers. The person who most closely guesses the number of M&Ms in their jar will win the whole centerpiece. (Diane, if you’re reading this, mums the word;-)

Light Bulb Jar Gifts for Graduation

First, from Good Housekeeping, here’s a creative way to give money that doesn’t require an envelope.

Get these “Headed for a Bright Future” free printable graduation favor tags from the wonderful Not Just A Mommy blog. Dawn used Sixlets in her jars because they come in such a wide variety of colors. You could use the graduate’s school colors.

Embellishing Life Everyday filled this jar with Lemon Heads and wrote “bright” sayings on Martha Stewart tags for a personal touch.

Light Bulb Jar Gifts for Teacher

Need a gift for your child’s teacher? Jennifer from Simply Cute Creations made a tag saying “Thanks for Making Me Brighter!” She also made paper flowers to put on top of the jars.

The ladies from Uncommon Designs filled their jars with chocolate-covered sunflowers and included a tag saying “Teachers Make the World a Brighter Place.” Thanks for the free printable gift tag, Trish.

I love how this light bulb jar is filled with jelly beans. The folks from 2 Clever Blog came up with several adorable sayings that could be put on the teacher gift tags such as “Thanks for “bean” a great teacher and letting me “shine”!”

Light Bulb Jar Gifts for Party Favors/Hostess

These light bulb jars from Paraphernalia are filled with spices. What an excellent packaging idea. What else could be put in jars to promote your company? Luckily the jars are food-friendly so anything goes.

These Lightbulb Terrariums from Clad And Cloth use air plants! They can also be hung from the ceiling if you put string through the lid. Genius.

Hobby Lobby provides a free printable project sheet explaining how to turn one of their light bulb jars into a hanging vase. Just poke a hold in the lid, insert a flower and add water.

Light Bulb Jar Gifts for Holidays

Need a Valentine’s Day gift? These light bulbs from 733 Blog are filled with Baby Goldfish, but you could also use Conversation Hearts or any other small valentine candy. Kim has graciously included a link to free printable “You Light Up My Life” and “You Are One Bright Kid” tags.

I couldn’t find a source for these turkeys, but a crafty person could easily cut out felt and add candy corn to make this adorable holiday craft. I especially love the pilgrim hat;-) It would be very easy to add a name tag and make them into Thanksgiving dinner place cards.

I bet you could come up with a few bright ideas of your own using light bulb jars. I’d love to see what you make. Just attach a photograph when commenting. The only unfortunate part of making these crafts is that you might get that song “You Light Up My Life” stuck in your head. That’s what happened to me after writing the first paragraph. Oh, well. It was worth it;-)

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