Tea Light Tower Candles

Have you bought one of those bags full of tea lights that, although theyre cheap and simplistic, theyre useful and pretty when burning? Its often possible to find a bag of the tea lights, which feature the cheap metal cups, for a few bucks. And, even though the tea lights arent impressive, they can be changed in many ways. You can remove the metal cup and put the light in a prettier cup, or you can paint the cheap metal to look like bronze or gold. One really exciting thing you can do with a bag of tea lights is to make tower candles. Theyre still tea lights but they work in a slightly different way than youre used to - at least as far as tea lights go.

The metal cups that go along with the cheap tea lights are often dented when you get them because the metal is so soft. Sort through the bag to find several candles, with no dents in the cups. Use them to make a tower tea light that keeps on giving. Its sometimes possible to push the dents out of the cups.

Its so easy to make the tea lights into a tower, for use as a pillar candle. The small metal cups make it a simple matter to stack the candles as high as you want - within reason. But first, slide one candle out of its cup, and hammer a nail through the middle of the cup, and into a board; put the candle back in the cup. Or, glue the candle, in its cup, onto a piece of board, card stock, or cardboard. Its up to you if you want to paint, or otherwise decorate, the cups. If you do, embellish any way you want, but keep bulky embellishments away from the very top and bottom edges. Stack a candle on top of the one that is on the board. Use a piece of colored tape around the area where they meet, to connect them, and to create a look for the tower candle. Stack the next tea light, and wrap tape around it, along with the one below it. Continue to stack and wrap the joints of the candles until the pillar is as tall as you want. Burn just the top tea light and, when its gone, take the tape off of it, and light the candle below it. You can continue with the shrinking pillar candle, until youre down to just one tea light. Or, you can secure the first candle to a glue dot and, anytime you want, you can pull it off and put another stack of candles underneath that one. The tower tea light, with its colorful tape stripes, is beautiful anywhere you put it. Use it as a centerpiece, set it on a mantle, or set it on a shelf as a decorator piece. What looks like one candle is actually many.