Put a sleeve on it!

Last night I got a wild hair when I got home from work just after 11pm and decided to crank out this little project.

I wanted to dress up a plain candle that I had put in the guest room as part of a little vignette on top of the dresser, so I busted out a few free materials that I already had and made a decorative sleeve for the candle.

Materials needed:

• Thin cardboard (I used an empty cereal box)
• Sheet of plain paper
• Pen or pencil
• Scissors
• Exacto knife
• Craft paint and paintbrush
• Candle in a glass holder

First I made a template from the plain paper since my candle is slightly tapered so my cardboard sleeve would need a bit of a curve in it. To make the template I first rolled the candle up in the plain paper.

Next, I used the pen to trace around the top and bottom of the glass holder on the inside of the paper.

When I unrolled it, I had a template of the curve of my candle (I just connected the 2 lines on the one end myself to get a straight edge, although that’s not shown in this picture).

I cut the template out and then traced it onto the plain inside of the cereal box.

After I cut that out, I then drew on the pattern that I wanted my cardboard sleeve to have. I chose a diamond type pattern. I drew double lines so that I could cut out the inside of the diamonds.

I used my exacto knife to cut out the inside of the diamonds and I was left with this:

I then painted the whole thing a dark charcoal colour. I also used my paper template to trace another sleeve onto the cardboard and then just cut thin strips from the top and bottom so that I could put a finished edge onto the patterned sleeve.

Then I simply rolled the patterned sleeve around the glass of the candle and hot glued the sleeve together where it met up. I made sure not to glue it right to the glass so that I can remove it later if I want to. I then hot glued the strips to the top and bottom to finish it off. I also made sure to paint the inside of the sleeve just at the top since the print from the front of the cereal box was visible from the inside of the top of the glass holder.

Then I just slipped the sleeve onto the candle and I had a free little upgrade to a plain candle!

Since the cardboard sleeve sits over the glass holder, I’m not worried about it catching on fire if and when this candle ever gets lit. Since it sits in the guest room, I doubt it will ever actually be lit and is really just for decoration. I’m pretty pleased with how this turned out, and this idea could easily be adapted with different patterns and for any size of candle.

All together this took me just over an hour to complete, including the drying time for the paint. It dried fairly quickly, I think just because I used only one coat of craft paint. I did wait until this morning to take the pictures of it in place in the guest room…day time light just looks so much nicer than how it would have looked at 1am :)

Who else gets crazy crafting ideas late at night?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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