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!