DIY Lighthouse Money Box

Happy Hump Day! To be honest, I’ve never liked that saying, but I think it goes well with today’s project as this little DIY project took me quite a while to make, as I couldn’t find the right rocks, jar OR light for ages. BUT, once I finally got the pieces that I was happy with, it was like getting over the “hump”, and the rest of the project fell into place fairly quickly!

I’m not exactly sure why, but I’ve always admired lighthouses. It’s probably got something to do with Bill’s Lighthouse in Pokemon and the HUGE Dragonite that appeared near it, but either way, I think they’re quite alluring, so I’m not surprised at all that one managed to make its way into a project of mine 🙊

Long(ish)-time readers will know that I am quite fond of money boxes. They are one of the many things that I collect, and I shared a DIY for a lipstick money box last year, which is one of the few DIY projects that I’ve actually kept around the house! I’d like to say that I keep most things I make, but when you make things as often as I do, it starts to take up quite a bit of room 😅

However, I kept the money box that I made, and I am 100% going to keep this one too! In fact, it’s already happily sitting on a shelf next to a large 3D Eiffel Tower puzzle I have, and I smile every time I look at it! Isn’t it magical?! 😍 Okay, enough tooting my own horn, let’s get onto the tutorial!

♡

YOU WILL NEED:

♡ Mailing tube (I got mine from Officeworks! Super cheap AND sturdy!)
♡ White and red paint
♡ X-acto knife
♡ Small glass jar
♡ Battery-operated tea light (I used these ones from Kmart Australia! They “flicker” like a real candle would, which I love!)
♡ Small rocks
♡ Hot glue gun + sticks
♡ Pencil and paint brush
♡ Masking tape

DIRECTIONS:

1. The mailing tube I bought was already white, but it had some lines that I wanted to get rid of so they didn’t disrupt my design, so I added two coats of white paint to the entire tube plus one of the lids, which will go at the top. If yours is plain white then you can skip this step and move onto number two!

2. After your white paint has completely dried, cut some strips of masking tape and wrap them in sections around your mailing tube so you can paint on the red stripes.

I measured the thickness of the tape to ensure that the distance between each piece of tape would be the same size as the tape itself. This will make both the red and white lines be the same thickness!

3. Once your have tape wrapped around your mailing tube, paint the sections without tape with red paint. Allow to dry, and add any additional coats as you deem necessary. Wait to dry completely before very carefully peeling the masking tape off.

You need to go slow with this step to ensure you don’t pull any of the white paint off, or rip the mailing tube itself. If needed, go back and repaint any areas where the white paint might have been peeled off.

4. With your pencil, draw a small rectangle towards the top of the tube. You want to make sure it’s big enough to fit most coins in, so having some coins nearby to compare the size to could be beneficial.

When you’re happy with the size and shape of your rectangle, carefully use your X-acto knife to cut it out. If the piece of cardboard falls inside the tube, just removed the bottom lid and it’ll fall right out!

5. Heat up your hot glue gun, then quickly add a ring of glue around the top lid of the mailing tube – as in, the one you painted white, that is closest to the coin slot. Quickly and carefully place the small glass jar on top of the glue and hold it in place until the glue dries. Then, twist off the lid and pop in your tea light!

6. Use your hot glue gun again to glue your assortment of rocks to the bottom of your tube. You could use a range of sizes and colours if you wish, but I chose to go with mostly white rocks for purely aesthetic reasons.

Make sure you don’t get any glue on the bottom lid though, as that’s what you will remove whenever you want to empty your money box and count up your coins. After that, you’re done!

♡

I am SO happy to finally have this project done! It’s been on my to list for years, but I kept forgetting about it, and then it took me ages to find the right glass jar that would look nice on the tube AND fit a light inside of it. Then I have to find some tiny lights that were battery operated, and find some white rocks for the bottom!

I ended up buying a bag of assorted rocks from a $2 shop (I felt uncomfortable getting them from outside considering I don’t know what’s been on them, but I just realised that the ones I bought were probably picked up off the ground too – oops 😂), so now I have an almost-kilo bags of tiny rocks that I am probably never going to use again, but oh well! I still love this project, and love that it came out exactly as I had planned!

Making money boxes is SO much fun, and mailing tubes are super perfect for them, too! Do you have any other money box design requests? If so, let me know in the comments 👇 because I could honestly make a new money box every week and be completely fine with it. After all, it would help grow my collection quite a bit! 😜

Until next time,
Indya xx

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