A couple of years ago, I made a soap dispenser for my kitchen out of a pretty canning jar that I had gotten when I bought pickles at an Amish farm stand. It was an easy project, drill a hole in the lid and insert an old dispenser from a used-up plastic soap dispenser bottle. I try to find ways to reduce waste and use less disposable plastic, and the refillable jar provided a way to do both.
Through time with continuous use and many wet hands dripping onto it, the top had rusted. It was not only unattractive, it was also so badly rusted it was flaking off down into the soap. Something had to be done.
Here it is before…not pretty
Although I prefer the look of the metal canning jar lid, I thought I’d try out a plastic one. Oddly enough, the plastic lid is harder to drill through than the metal ones. If you use a large drill bit, it can easily crack. For this, I ended up drilling a small set of holes in a circle, then using small scissors to cut out the shape. While I was at it, I also replaced the pump with another old one I had since I could not get the rust stains off of the first one. If you want to, you can run a bead of silicone caulk or hot glue around the inside of the lid where the pump come in, but if the hole is tight enough to hold the pump, I’ve found that wasn’t necessary.
Not as pretty, but it will do for now. I may try to see if there is some sort of sealer I can put onto a metal canning jar lid that would prevent it from rusting and swap it back out eventually, but it may end up that the kitchen soap jar dispenser may just have to be subject to function over form.
alookatthelittlethings 