DLTK's Holiday Crafts for Kids
Votive Candle Holder Craft

I call this a votive candle holder, but I find tea lights to be a safer choice -- you can also use the pretend candles that they sell at Halloween to put in pumpkins.

Materials:

• one small jar (a baby food jar works well), cleaned with label removed.  The lid is not needed.
• tissue paper or paper napkins (solid colours and patterns both work)
• mod podge or white glue.
• a votive candle...  If you actually plan on burning the candle, a tealight candle would likely be better as the jar won't be as likely to break from the heat. You can also use a battery operated candle
• paint brush, q-tip or popsicle stick
• Optional:  a printer, paper, scissors and something to colour with

Instructions:

• If using white glue you will need to thin it; mix 1/2 glue and 1/2 water in a container (like a margarine container).
• If using paper napkins, separate the plies.
• Rip tissue paper or napkins into pieces about 1 inch by 1 inch.  It is good if the pieces are jagged.  Patterned tissue paper or napkins work nicely.  Ripping the tissue paper is good motor control practice for the kids (and is a lot harder than it looks for some!).
• Using your paint brush, cue tip or popsicle stick, paint the baby food jar with the mod podge or thinned glue.  Only paint the main jar area (not the part where you would screw the top on -- we don't want any paper to catch fire).
• Paste tissue paper all over the jar.  Feel free to overlap pieces or use different colours or patterns on the same jar.  I keep lots of different tissue paper from gifts and when it comes time to do a craft, I let Tasha pick the ones she wants to use.
• Paint more glue over the top of any pieces that look a bit loose.
• Let dry.
• Print out template of choice (this part is optional...  The candle holder looks nice without the template pieces pasted on.  Or, cut out a small picture of the child and paste it on instead of the template.  Or, decorate with sparkle glue.).
• Colour if necessary (depends on which template you chose).
• Cut out the decorations you wish to use.
• Glue them onto the baby food jar (keep them off the screw top area).
• Put a votive candle into the candle holder and give it to Mom or Grandma!  (I like to make two matching holders for each recipient).
• You can tie a ribbon around the holder to decorate, but I recommend the recipient remove it if they plan to light their candle.
• When you light the candle, it will shine very prettily through the tissue paper, so don't totally cover the holder with template pieces!

Craft Templates:

• Close the template window after printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).

Template    (color)   or   (B&W)

Printable version of these instructions