25 Days of Christmas and Holiday Series: Day 20

Festive Little Luminaries

I picked up these Parmesan cheese shaker containers at The Dollar Tree.  I wanted to make a few luminaries and  I thought that the lid with it's holes seemed perfect, since they would allow oxygen to the burning candle. 

Supply List

Glass Shaker Containers

18 Gauge Wire (3 feet per luminary)

Candle that fits into container

Assorted Fresh Christmas Greens

Jingle Bells (about 1 inch in size)

Thin Satin Red Ribbon

Scissors, Wire Snips

I first made the hanger out of the 18 gauge wire.  The wire really needs to be securely wrapped around the jar.  Here is how I did mine.

This is the handle.  Figure how tall you want
yours, making sure you leave enough length to
be able to twist back up.

After making the handle, attach it to the jar making sure to hold it into place while you wrap the wire around the jar.  If you look at the image below, you will see how I first made a 'hook' in one end of the wire to be wrapped, so that I will have something for the wire as it comes back around the jar to link into.  Make sure you pull this the tightest possible as you go.

Add caption

Tie off this ends by working them inside each other.  Don't
worry about it looking a little ugly.  You will be covering this
up later with your accents.

After the wrap is complete, you can
then twist the ends of the handles
back up around itself.

Here is what it looks like at
this point.

Now you want to take your candle and pop it right into the jar, screwing the top back on over it.  Here are the candles I used from The Dollar Tree.

Important tip!!  Make sure your candles fit into the jars before you buy them, take them home and find yourself in the middle of this project with candles that don't fit!  You will find yourself, like me, having to do this....

Yep...that was me! Using a knife to shave the darn candles small enough to fit in the jars!!!  Duh!  Don't try this stunt at home! (wink)

After finally popping my candles into the jars, I bent out one of the ends of the wire where they met in the middle and worked in some fresh greens, a rusty jingle bell and topped it off with a bow made from thin red satin ribbon.

Look closely.  This image was
taken after I had placed the green,
jingle bells and the tie off for the bow.
You can see the little wire that
I bent out to hold them in place.

Here are the final results...

**When you burn your candles, depending on the height of the candle, they could really heat up that metal lid!  Keep away from children and watch touching them yourself!

Sweet, simple (well, if you buy the right size candle) and festive!  Best part?!  After the holidays, I can take the accents off and put something else.  It's the project that lasts far beyond the glow of the holidays!  

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for my
Day 21
of

25 Days of Christmas and Holiday Ideas and Gifts Series!!

-The End-
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