Monday, February 1, 2010

Making a cheap candlescape

Have you just seen these candlescapes everywhere?

I know I have, and I love them!

But the price on one already put together (that actually looks decent) doesn't exactly give me the warm fuzzies.

Plus, since I have a bunch of little peeps in my home, I need the battery operated ones or I just am not able to have them lit at all. (insert sniffling sounds here)

So, with my "I can do it" tude, er attitude, I made up my mind to make it myself.

Image courtesy of Pottery Barn even though they have no idea that I copied it

And yet another divine image from Pottery Barn

The price of really big battery operated candles is enough to make you have chest pains. That was so not happening so I decided to "fake it".

I bought a nice wicker and wood, shallow basket from Wally's World. Marked down to $3.50 from $19.99. Total score!

I bought these 3 glasses vases from Goodwill for a total of $1.50. You can find these every day of the week and then some.

I picked up some cream colored contact paper (Fred Meyers $7) and then covered the vases. (I only used about 50 cents worth, and there is a ton left for other "candles")

It is waaaaay easier to just slap the contact paper on and then shave off the extra on each end using a really sharp break away knife.

I grabbed three bags of river rocks ($1 ea) from the dollar store and poured one bag in each "candle".

The dollar store also had cute little battery operated tealights and I stuck on top of the rocks in each vase. ($1.50 total)

A bag of potpourri that I bought at Walmart ($3) was sprinkled around the "candles".

It was super easy! It only took me 15 minutes to put it all together and would have been shorter if the OCD in me hadn't tried like mad to match up the edge of the contact paper to the edge of the vase.

All done!

The only thing that was still annoying me was the outlet in the background. My eyes were automatically drawn to it.

So, I grabbed a piece of burlap that I had laying around and stapled it to the back of my entryway table.

Much better!


Total cost?

Less than $15