Watering Can Lights

Garden Art with Fairy Lights and Water Can
My watering can sprinkles light, not water!

This garden art is easy to make. It's a perfect project for your spring and summer gardens. I like to bring it out in April and leave it up through the summer. Then I put it away until next year.

It's a painted and distressed metal watering can with solar-powered fairy lights pulled through the spout - so much fun to watch them come on every evening.

All you really have to do is get a metal watering can and string solar or battery-operated fairy lights through the spout. You may need to drill the sprinkler head hole so it's bigger for your lights to fit. Solar lights are nice, as they come on automatically each night. To dress it up, you can plant flowers in the top of the can, as well.

~ Dana

Watering Can Lights

Supplies
a metal watering can
spray paint for metal (opt.)
sand paper, fine to medium grit (opt.)
solar or battery-powered fairy lights
drill if needed
shepherd's hook stake (opt.)
blooming plant (opt.)

Instructions
1. Use any kind of metal watering can you like, and paint it if you wish with a good paint for outdoor use, such as Rustoleum® glossy, with Krylon® flat indoor/outdoor primer spray paint. After the two coats of paint are completely dry, you can distress it a little with sand paper. If your watering can has a raised design in the metal, distressing will bring it out nicely.

2. Unscrew the sprinkler head and thread your lights from the inside of the watering can through the neck of the spout. Pull all of the lights through to the outside, leaving the end of the string inside the can.

3. Next, pull the lights through the sprinkler head's largest hole. You may need to drill it out to have enough room to get the lights through. Screw the sprinkler head back onto the spout neck. To get a sprinkling water effect, loop about 12-24" back up to the hole a couple of times, so you have more than one strand coming out of the hole.

4. Hang your watering can in the garden from a shepherd's hook-style garden stake placed in the ground, or hang it securely wherever it works best for you.

5. If you have extra lights in the string, make a "puddle" on the ground with them, just under the watering can.

6. If you wish, you can place a flower pot with a blooming plant in the top of the can.

Notes

Watering Can Before Painting
Metal watering can before painting

Metal watering cans are sometimes hard to find these days. Mine came from Ace Hardware®.

Fairy lights with solar panel
Solar-powered fairy lights

You can buy solar-powered fairy lights at almost any garden center store or online. You may also use a string of mini solar lights, instead. Solar lights are nice, as they come on automatically every evening. 

Watering can on a garden ground stake

Garden ground stakes may be bought at garden stores, in the garden sections of big box stores or hardware stores, and online. The shepherd's hook style works well for this.

 

Printable Gardening Pages

Fairy Lights Watering Can Instruction page 1

Fairy Lights Watering Can Instruction page 2

copyright 2025, Dana Meier, My Olde Country Home


Dana Meier is a caterer, cookbook author, online content creator and purveyor of historic crafts in Washington state. Her first cookbook was published in 2023.

My Olde Country Home: Olde Fashioned Christmas Desserts

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