Around the House DIY: Votive Candle Holder

Now that I am fully moved into my apartment, I signed up for a few home decoration magazines - not the most fun thing to read. As I was quickly going through the pages, something beautiful caught my eye. It was a picture of a Christmas-themed mantle above the fireplace. The thing that stood out the most was the beaded candle holders. I looked online for hours trying to find one that I can afford. Some I found were $50+, or the ones I did find that fit my price range, you had to order in bulk; I’m assuming for wedding centerpieces or restaurants.

I was about to give my hopes up but then I thought,“Wait, I can totally make this." I highly doubt that it would look as nice as the one in the magazine, but I sure could get close to it. Of course, I want to decorate on a dime so I went to the dollar store and picked up two glass candle holders, two round glass votive holders and two bags of accent gems. I chose the clear gems so they can match any type of décor or adapt to any type of colors in the room.

Supplies needed:

2 round glass votive holders (any size)
2 glass candle holders (any stem size)
2 flat mirrored holders
2 packs of gems
Hot glue gun

Step 1:

After removing all the price tags and stickers (so annoying) you can start gluing on all
the gems with the hot glue gun.

I started to glue the gems onto the votive holder. My first approach was to do a "staggered"
look so there would be less empty spots on the votive holder. After I did a tiny section, I
realized that it was a stupid mistake - there were huge gaps in between each gem. I then
decided to glue one row at a time.  Before I would glue them down I made sure the gem was
a perfect match for each spot. The tricky part about this is once you are finishing with the row,
you had to make sure that a gem would fit into that tiny gap between the last gem and the
beginning gem. You might have to measure a few gems before gluing one down. Fast forward
all the way until I finished gluing the top row; this holder is now super heavy from all the gems!

Step 2:

Glue the candle holder to the bottom of the votive. Make sure to do really thick layers of glue
so it will stay on properly.

I put a ton of hot glue on the top of the candle stick and I quickly put the gemmed votive on top.
I applied a lot of pressure on it so it would adhere properly. About a minute later I flipped over
the candle holder and put more glue around the two connecting spots so it wouldn’t be so top heavy.

Step 3:

Glue the bottom of the candle holder to the mirror. This next step is optional, but if you
don’t want to see the dried glue, glue the gems on the base of the holder.

After it was fully dried, I placed the candle holder upright and admired my work. I realized
that it wasn’t sturdy enough; god forbid if you sneezed, that holder would fall and crack
into little pieces. Luckily, I had these flat mirrored candle holders from a previous project.
I glued the base of the candle holder onto the mirrored surface; this made it much sturdier.
I didn’t like the way the glued looked once it dried onto the mirror so I glued gems on the
base and some on the mirror. The extra gems on the bottom are totally not necessary,
but I knew I would look at that dried up glue every day and it would bother me; so I decided
to save myself the aggravation.

Here is the finished product! You can place yours wherever you want -
Bedroom dresser, the dining room table, or in my case, the mantle above the fireplace.