Christmas In August?? Making Wooden Candles

No definitely not. In fact I don’t even like Christmas in December if you must know. What I do like is making things. All kinds of things. Even Christmas ornaments in August.

I had some free time while Jim was busy in the workshop so I decided to make some wooden candles for the tree.

I saw candles on Pinterest that were made out of the old fashioned clothespins. I did a quick search online and found them for sale but I didn’t want to buy 100 of them, or even 20 of them. I decided not to spend any money making this craft, so out to the workshop I headed to see what I could find to use.

Jackpot! I found a wooden dowel that would be perfect. I knew this could work so I took the dowel and marked it off in candle length increments.

Then I took a spare scrap of 1/8th inch thick plywood and drew out enough flame shaped pieces to match what I had in candle pieces from the dowel.

I cut the flames on the bandsaw and gave them a hand sanding.

Here is where things went horribly wrong. I left all my parts in the workshop, heading to the house for a minute. Being ever helpful, Jim cut the candles on the marks I had made on the dowel using the chop saw. When I opened the door to the workshop to go back in…a candle went whizzing by my head and I knew it wasn’t good. The round dowel got away from him while cutting it and nearly broke his thumb. I hope these candles are awesome!!

I sanded each candle because there was some sort of white coating on the dowel from the manufacturer. Next I needed a way to attach the candles to the tree. The clothespins had a slot that would slip over the clothesline or tree in this case, so I marked and cut the slot on the bandsaw, first with a straight line, then chipping away at each side to make the slot wider.

I took my candles and flames into the house to finish them. I found a piece of cardboard and shoved the candles onto the cardboard using the slots. Then I took them outside and gave them a coat of white spray paint.

Once dry I could start on the glue, or the drips for the candles. Hard to use the glue gun and take a picture at the same time, but here was my progress so far.

With the glue dry I gave them another coat of white spray paint so the drippings would be white as well.

Now time for the flames. I used yellow, orange and red paint to make them look flame like.

Then glued the flame to the top of the candle.

Here they are all lined up.

I don’t know if you picked up on it or not, but in order to save you from my mistake, I will point out that I should have turned the flames 90 degrees so that when the candle sits on the tree branch the flame faces out. Not a problem for me… we have an artificial tree so I will just bend the branch so the flame is facing out.

Once they were finished and dry, I tucked them away for Christmas decorating. I’m sure December me will appreciate August me for planning ahead.

Later.

UPDATE!!!!!

Here is a pic of one of the candles on the tree this year. Glad I made them.