Crafts

DIY Birch Candle Holders and Mini Trees

These were fun projects to make even though there was no paint involved. Also they were basically free, my favourite kind.

We headed out to the woods to cut down a birch tree. Our property is full of them, we have even transplanted a few closer to the house when we first moved here that are huge now.

DIY birch candle holders, DIY birch mini trees.
Follow the leader.

Once we picked out the tree, Jim got to work cutting it down.

DIY birch candle holders, DIY birch mini trees.
TIMBER.

Then cut the limbs off…

DIY birch candle holders, DIY birch mini trees.
My lumberjack.

And we carried the pieces home…

DIY birch candle holders, DIY birch mini trees.
Our favourite place to be.

We took them to the chop saw and cut 3 pieces for the candle holders at 4, 5, and 6 inches.

DIY birch candle holders, DIY birch mini trees.
Perfect.

Then we eyeballed the slices for the trees at about 1/2 inch thick taking the slices from different sections of the tree trunk so they would graduate from biggest to smallest like a tree. See where I’m going with this? We even took a few slices from the thinner branches.

From there, they sat here over the air intake register for a month to dry out.

DIY birch candle holders, DIY birch mini trees.
Patience grasshopper.

The only purchase for this project was LED flickering battery operated tea lights. Jim took the candle holders out to the workshop along with one of the tea lights, using it to measure for the size of the bit for the drill.

DIY birch candle holders, DIY birch mini trees.
Thats the one.

He found the center of the wood…

DIY birch candle holders, DIY birch mini trees.
Looks good to me.

and drilled down so just the top edge of the tea light would be above the candle holder.

DIY birch candle holders, DIY birch mini trees.
Lots of sawdust.

Before I show you them finished, lets move on to the trees shall we.

I stacked up the wood slices and some needed to be turned around to keep the trees straight. Once they were as straight as they were going to be, I marked each slice down one side with a black marker like so.

DIY birch candle holders, DIY birch mini trees.
No one will ever know.

Started hot glueing on the second from the bottom working my way from biggest to smallest, lining up the dots from the marker…

DIY birch candle holders, DIY birch mini trees.
Trusty old glue gun.

I pressed them together while the glue dried.

DIY birch candle holders, DIY birch mini trees.
That should do it.

I saved one small slice for each tree to put on the bottom to raise them up.

DIY birch candle holders, DIY birch mini trees.
Ta da…

In my mind these trees were going to be a lot taller, like 4 or 5 inches taller. In the spring I think we are taking down a birch tree that has expanded a little too close to the house and at that time I will take off the little piece at the bottom and add a few more slices. Until then, here they are on our floating shelves

DIY birch candle holders, DIY birch mini trees.
A collection of trees.

And closer…

DIY birch candle holders, DIY birch mini trees.
And then there were 5.

And the candle holders…

DIY birch candle holders, DIY birch mini trees.
Birch log candle holders.

And for Christmas…

Birch log candle holders DIY.
Pretty.

There you have it, a quick (minus the drying time) easy and fun couple of projects that didn’t break the bank.

Later.

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