Pottery Barn Inspired Votive Holder

I was honored by having the opportunity to guest post at Someday Crafts a couple weeks back.

In case you might have missed the post, here it is! Enjoy!

 I figured I would show y'all how to work out your DIY muscles to achieve a similar item like this from Pottery Barn but only for a fraction of the price:

They are selling this for $69. I know its beautiful n'all, but.....yeah, never in my lifetime.

I came up with a similar idea that will only cost you approximately $5 (especially if you have the supplies on hand).

Ready to get started?

Step 1:

Alrighty...first things first. You need a piece of wood (of course). I chose to use a 4x4 piece of douglas fir. I cut it to the size I wanted with my compound miter saw (or you can have the guys at Home Depot do this for you).

The length of mine is 30 inches.

You'll also need a ruler (I don't know why I have two pictured here, although I did use both of them....I tend to lose things a lot, maybe that's why I have two....ya' know, just in case),

a drill (I chose one that had a cord because I knew I needed some power behind what I was going to do next),

preferably a 2" spade drill bit (I couldn't find one that size, so I had to use a 1 1/2" bit on this holder),

and a pencil.

Step 2: 

Mark where you want your candle holes. I chose to have 5 holes, so I centered the first one and marked off the rest at equal distance from there.

You'll then need to put on your safety goggles :) (Safety first!).

Now center the drill bit directly in the center of where the hole will be (I marked this with an X).

Turn that bad boy on, hold on tight....and go to town!

I kepted drilling away until my hole reached 1 inch in depth-this will ensure that the hole is deep enough to hold votive candles.

FYI~While in the process of drilling, keep an eye out for the heat of the drill, it will get extremely hot! If it gets to hot, it may start to smoke and spark and who knows.........cause a fire? Eeeeee.

So, if it starts to feel like its getting a little 'warm', turn it off....go get a snack, play with the dog, go for a run....then come back and it should be good to go.

While drilling the 5 holes, I only had to stop once to let it cool down.

Step 3:

Now for the easy and fun part.

Decorating!

On this piece, I chose to paint the whole thing. After letting it dry, I sanded the edges a little and added some stain to give it a vintage feel.

I then chose to use a wood applique to dress this bad boy (or girl) up, stained and painted that also.

Next, apply the applique using wood glue.

Or apply whatever other decoration you choose to use.

I then found some beautiful candle holders to use as the 'feet' to give it more pizzazz.

Worked like a charm!

Just super glue these on.

Put the candles in.

And enjoy!

Here's another one I created... just to give you a little more inspiration.

I used the same technique as steps 1 and 2, but just chose to decorate it a little different.

After assembling, I wrapped this baby with some jute, then added drawer knobs as the feet since I thought it needed a little extra somethin'.

This holder holds 11 candles!

I'm loving the drama it creates.

The possibilities with this concept are endless. You can create a 1 candle holder all the way up to....who knows....30 maybe?

The wood can be stained, painted, spray painted, decoupaged (use wrapping paper for longer pieces), wrapped, embellished,.......etc.

.

Now get crafting!!!

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Hanging Mason Jars from PB

Thank goodness for Pottery Barn for inspiring us to be creative and make for pennies what they are selling for gobs of money, huh? Where would we be without PB? I don't know...but I don't want to find out. I have found sooo many inspiring things to make from their website :) Thank you Pottery Barn.

~Now to another Pottery Barn inspired project~

Hanging Mason Jars. Here are the ones from Pottery Barn (you can see the close up on their website).

I absolutely loooove this idea of having hanging mason jars on some twine or even a tree branch.

Uh. I just wish I had the beach that close to me too :)

From that inspiration, I made my own. Not hanging on a branch just yet (mainly because we don't have any trees in our yard) but this will do fine for now:

To make these, I was going to go through my jar collection, but I didn't have quite the ones I was looking for. Then I was going to go to the thrift store and get some, but I went to Hobby Lobby first, and on a whim I went down an aisle, and I found some for 50% off....and not used...and I didn't have to clorox them...I was totally sold :) They ended up being 60 cents each :)

So, first, I got some picture hanging wire that was lying around the house (I think I bought this at Target for like $2 for a whole slew of it). I got my handy dandy little jewelry making wire cutter/wrapper thingy and cut the wire a little bit longer than circumference of the mouth of the jar.

Then I cut that piece of wire in half and rolled the wire in on itself on both sides of both pieces of wire:

I then connected them together around the jar:

Next, I cut a longer piece of wire and did the same thing to both sides, then connected one end to the already connected circumference wire, and the other end to the other side: (did that make any sense?)

And taada!

PB has two wires twisted together to create this same look. I did this....and decided that it wasn't the look I was going for. But if you want the twisted look, just do the same steps as above just make sure you twist your two wires together first!

I loooove how they turned out!

I found the sand at the dollar store, it came with 1 1/4 lb of yellow (orange?) sand. The votives are also from the dollar store, 4 to a pack. So, this project cost me only $3.80. Eat your heart out PB! lol :)

I'm going to create these using larger mason jars and hang them on our front porch railing.

I can't wait for good weather!!!

Click here to see the tutorial on the posts the mason jars are hanging from.

Update: Here's another fun way to hang your mason jars! Click the picture to go to the tutorial.

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