How A Soap Pump Made Me Happy

This past weekend I was able to get out of the house by myself for a few hours. That does not sound like much, but with all the chaos of our busy schedule, two babies under 2 years old and all the sicknesses that keep hitting us- it was quite the treat! I was able to wander stores at my own pace (I even walked around Target twice, just because I could! And no, I did not buy a single thing.).

I worked my way down the shopping center and made it to the craft & fabric store where I purchased a canning jar and a bottle of citrus mint scented hand soap ($1 special!). I came home, hopped on my Pinterest "craft ideas" board and got to work on this tutorial. She used a foaming soap pump so do not feel limited to the standard kind.

I got a hammer and a Philips's head screwdriver, made extremely rough measurements on the lid for my jar, and started poking holes in the form of a circle. I used needle nose pliers to bend and shape the circle a little smoother and rounder.

Then I poured the soup out of it's plastic container into the jar so I could cut the top of the container apart. I only took off the very top, where the pump attaches to the rest of the container. I popped that into my jar lid hole, hot glued it together, put the lid on the glass jar and screwed on the soap pump. That was it! Took me maybe 10 minutes which included both gathering my supplies and my one-and-a-half year old daughter pulling my pants down (literally... she's in the stage where she wants to pull me around with her, so down went my sweats!).

I don't like the clear plastic pump with the silver lid so I'm going to spray paint them to match. 

The soap is yellow and looks pretty in the glass jar and smells like summer! It's a little early for summer scents with it only being March, but down in Arizona my Oregonian brain says anything above 65 degrees is summer.

I wish I took pictures as I made this to help you see how I did it.... I guess that means I'll have to make another! ;) This project is cute, easy, fast, and would make a cute gift! I want to make one for my dish soap and one for both of my bathrooms now. :)

And don't limit yourself to soap! You could also do hand sanitizer (cute teacher gift???) or lotions as well. Anything that has a pump can be transformed to be much cuter to have sitting on your counter! And you can do a web search for printable labels or find some at your local craft store, or anywhere that sells canning jars. Pinterest is always a good place to look as well. If giving away, a simple bow tied around the lid would be cute... I'm thinking gingham or perhaps twine would be pretty and simple.