DIY: Flameless candles

Do you remember my mercury glass pillar candle holders? Well, it only makes sense to have pillar candles to go with them. Only one problem, no open flame is allowed at Waldenwoods. Boo. After considering our options, we decided flameless candles might be a good option, but they are so darn expensive. My mom and I found ivory flameless candles at Sam's Club for a killer price. Ivory isn't one of our colors, so I tried to paint them. Just so you know, neither frost paint or white paint work well. It ends up just looking like a pillar candle painted white. In other words, it looked stupid. Plus, the flamess candles glowed fake orange. Double bummer. I studied the construction of the flameless candle and convinced myself that I could make one for cheap. It was a success!


Supplies:

white pillar candles about 3 inches wide - Michaels (USE YOUR COUPONS!)
Electric drill
1 or 1 1/2 inch spade drill bit
SOFT white LEDs - like these
Lithium CR2032 batteries - like these
Toothpicks
tape


We drilled a hole using a spade drill bit into each pillar candle from the top. We have pillar candles about 6 inches tall and we drilled about halfway down. We tried both the 1 inch and 1 1/2 inch and we liked the 1 1/2 inch better.

Put two of the soft white LEDs so that the pins straddle the lithium battery. Tape the LED pins and a the tip of a toothpick to the battery so everything stays together, like so:

Put your LED into the hole of the candle and push the toothpick into the wax so the LEDs stays upright. DONE.

Full light:

Medium Light:

Dark:

The only bad thing is that you can't easily turn them on and off, so I will have to assemble them the morning of the wedding. Not bad for a cheap DIY project!

Saving for a (hopefully) sunny day.

I have been thinking a lot lately about money and how finances work in relationships. Obviously, no financial plan is the right one, per se,  and, what works largely depends on the couple… and even if a financial plan works, it is never without its faults. Love is a powerful card, but when you aren’t on the same page with your goals, money issues can trump all.  

It was a choice by both of us to save money for this wedding. We want certain things for our wedding and we believe those things are, for the most part, our responsibility. As I said before early when I started blogging about this experience, I was shocked about how much weddings cost. A wedding definitely doesn’t have to cost very much. I am so happy for couples that have found a way to keep their wedding under $5000! Click here for a good example! I wish I had found a way to have everything we wanted for that price, but that was not going to happen. And, we are having a big wedding because this is one of those things in life worth celebrating.

I have now seen what the cost is of each part of our wedding day. I have worked very hard to find the best price for everything. And, I have (sort of) accepted that this is what a stack of paper costs….this is what food costs…this is what a person’s time is worth... this is what MY time and peace of mind is worth. What I am trying to say is if something truly does cost X and you really want that something, then you have to pay X to have it for your wedding. Knowing all of this and knowing that I don’t have to have it for my wedding, I don’t feel like I can complain about the cost of a wedding anymore.

To have the things we want, we have been saving our butts off.  It has been sort of difficult to limit our social lives in this way for so long. Coupons have helped. JI just found out that if you go to Target.com that you can print out so many coupons for just about everything to take with you to the store. I. love. Target. (Almost as much as I love Michaels.)

I truly believe saving for our wedding has brought us closer together as well. We are definitely on the same page. We agreed on a savings goal and we talk about how we are doing at meeting that goal at least once a month. We both want to be good savers even after the wedding. It is very comforting to know that I have a partner who cares as much about making sure we save for what we want and that we are financially secure. Wes is going crazy right now worrying about getting a job. (PLEASE New Jersey, give him a job!) We also both want balance in our lives. We said way back in 2010 that we didn’t want saving for the wedding to result in us having no life at all. I think we have done well with that.  The most significant thing is that I am so proud of us for saving as much as we have. We have worked and will continue to work hard. I am very confident that each time we set a goal that we will both work equally to meet it.

We have considered the difficult question of whether our relationship can withstand life’s tests (illness, children that take after their mother haha, our own insecurities, other unforeseeable events). What I know for sure is that we can and want to work together through everything. For that reason, whenever I wonder about those difficult questions, I feel confident that we have something great and that will continue to be great as long as we put in the effort.

When to say "I don't" to DIY

I love a good DIY project, but not when it looks cheap. I truly believe it is my life mission of mine to make my clothes, jewelry, house décor, wedding décor, etc look expensive but in a super cost effective way. However, there’s a balance. If something is going to be cheap but look cheap then I don’t want it. I spend a lot of time researching everything I buy because I want to make sure I am spending my money wisely. I am not opposed to spending more when it means I am getting a higher quality item, but sometimes it is not worth it! And, most the time, I can find or make something that does the same thing but for cheaper. I mean, seriously, I can’t imagine spending more than $20 for mascara. Dior mascara users – I’m talking to you! Okay, I’ll admit I have been eyeing the Dior Iconic mascara for myself, but I would feel so guilty spending that much for mascara. I guess I would spend that much if someone promised me that it wasn’t made by small children in a third world country and that the packaging was biodegradable…

Getting back on track, let’s talk mercury glass. Oh, that beautiful mercury glass. Real mercury glass is super expensive. It was very popular to have mercury glass in the early 20^th century because it looked like silver but was cheaper. Over years, the faux silver finish in mercury glass flecks away leaving that beautiful old vintage appearance. These vintage pieces come with a vintage price tag. There are processes that mimic this effect, but even fake mercury glass is expensive. Call me crazy, but I am not spending $3.20 plus tax and shipping for each FAUX mercury votive. This was the cheapest I could find online.

Luna Bazaar

So, DIY it, right? There are so many tutorials online on how to make your own mercury glass. Here’s the best one tutorial that I have found from Take the Side Street blog.

Here’s my tips:
I tried spraying vinegar on the glass first before you spray the paint. That just makes the paint run. Spray the vinegar after you paint the inside.

Rub away the paint unevenly to mimic the real thing.

Make sure you have lots of time. I tried it once and here’s what it looked like:

Blah. It looks okay, but when you put a candle in it, it looks cheap. Remember, I hate cheap looking things. I think if I spent a little more time painting it and only used the vinegar after, I am sure could get it to look really good. However, I am sort of impatient and I want 54 votives so I found that this project was too time consuming for just an okay result. Plus, the spray paint isn’t super cheap. For reference, I found mine on Amazon for around $11 for a little can.

I was this close to abandoning my mercury glass wedding fantasy until I found mercury glass votives at Michaels. Sound familiar? Yep, I got all my other candles at Michaels, too! So, I strutted my bad thrifty self into Michaels with my 40% coupons and walked out with my mercury votives (over the course of several weeks). Best part was that with the coupon they were about $.85 for each mercury glass votive. They come in packs of six. I’ll get some votive candles through quickcandle.com to put inside. Behold, inexpensive pretty mercury glass!

DIY next to the Michaels one.

I also bought these tall mercury glass pillar candle holders, too.

Love 'em. Bonus? I get to sell these afterwards and get my money back. I like the thought of re-using wedding stuff and it makes me happy that another bride will get her mercury glass fantasy wedding, too.