Boring White Pillar Candles Get An Easy Makeover
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 8:56AM I've started lighting old candles a lot recently, so it was time to replace them. I don't know why I went on such a a long candle hiatus - I love the flickering light! I splurged on what I feel is the absolute best candle in the world. Yes, you read that right. The best candle in the world. So delicious!
Capri Blue Volcano Candle
I wish computers had scratch-n-sniff screens so you could smell this yumminess. Hmm...maybe I'll invent that & retire? ;)
Unable to spend too much money on other flickers of light, I bought some basic white pillar candles. They look nice, but I wanted to spice them up a bit! I love adding our living room accent colors whenever possible, so I decided to DIY some pep into these plain Jane's.
I had two ideas for this project - wrapping them in different colors and widths of grosgrain ribbon and wrapping them in printed scrapbook paper. I found cute polka dot ribbon and headed to the scrapbooking aisle. I loved these laser cut patterns (I've professed my love for laser/paper cutting here before) and snapped up the blue and turquoise, which happen to be our accent colors.
It's actually quite simple to assemble these (well, I did run into one tiny issue, but it was easy enough to fix!). Lay the paper face down with the candle on top. Decide how high up you want the paper wrap to go and make a mark. Then take a straight edge (a notebook works!) and draw a line all the way across. Cut on the line. Yes, I'm talking about 2nd grade arts & crafts here people.
There will be some little pieces that get decapitated, but just brush them aside. Well, you could take the time to stick each little semi-circle on the candle...but even I didn't go that far.
Now, take the paper, wrap it around the candle and tape the seam together.
Hmm...do you see the problem here? I must have had selective memory loss from doing our wedding invitations, because I orginially wanted to do belly bands with this same type of paper. And ran into this same exact problem. The little cut pieces stick straight out instead of curling with the candle. I didn't want to give up (like I did with the invites when I switched to a letter pressed sheet of paper) so I had the idea to wrap up the sleeves like a poster to curl them up.
I left it curled up for about a half hour, unraveled them and wrapped & taped them around the candles. Whaddya know? It worked.
Then I placed them in a coordinating green lacquer tray along with a couple of tealights & was left with a great new addition to our coffee table.
You know, in case you have a photo shoot to prepare for or something. ;)
Happy Candle Wrapping!
DIY 
Reader Comments (11)
Love it. I'm going to totally try this!
That's great! I was amazed at the transformation - it was so. easy.
Genius! I love it.
What a great idea! I love the paper you found and those colors are perfect for our apt. I'm off to Michaels ;-)
Oh my gosh! I love this! It's so gorgeous and SO easy!
They look beautiful in your living room!
what a great idea! they're so pretty and seems easy enough. thanks!
Thanks Mom :)
Love them! Still a little shocked though that you didn't take the time to glue the semi-circles on;)
Alexis - if I had made these this week, it might be a different story ;)
great tutorial!!! i need to try this...
jcd