Yesterday the duck and I wrote about how we were unpleasantly surprised when we found out that the Christmas tree scented candle that we had bought in hopes of having found the one Christmas candle that does not smell super sweet did indeed smell like a tiny tree on a mountain of gingerbread (well, I guess they might have advertised it as specifically Christmas tree scented, rather than, say, fir). Anyway, the duck and I took this mild disappointment and turned it into an exciting, somewhat Christmas themed, bedroom beautification broject! See, once the candle was gone and our room smelled like a cookie factory, we thought that we should definitely turn all our former candle containers into tea light holders, to give them another chance at not disappointing us!
This vanilla scented candle (which is a Christmas scent as you can tell by the golden glitter on it) did not look as neat as it does in the picture for long. I wonder what the duck was thinking about, casually looming? Well, it might have had to do with our plans of turning this innocent candle into a not as elegant looking colorful duck-display (keep reading to find out how):
Candle party!
Since today’s project is so simple, we won’t even post instructions like we did last time when we made a photo wall to celebrate our surprising persistence (despite that laziness).
Basically, we bought a candle in a glass container, burned it down (enjoying the not as disappointing vanilla scent that filled our bedroom for a few days), rinsed the container with boiling water and dish liquid, cleaned out all the residual wax with a paper towel, let it dry a little bit, and then attacked it with a gel pen (not a good idea), a lead pencil and lots of colored pencils. If you only use pencils and make sure not to touch the outside of the glass too much, your design should stay intact for a very long time.
Well, the duck and I were lucky to have found candles in glass containers with a rather rough surface. If you have regular smooth glass containers (we also have some of those) you can always decorate with stickers, maybe some Washi tape (we got some fun Christmas themed Disney character tape at a 100 yen shop when we still lived in Japan. We’ll defintiely decorate some of our not as easily-painted-on candle holders with that!), and all kinds of pens and colors that you can draw on glass with (I’d make sure they’re heat-resistant, though, just to be safe).
Our design turned out to be not so Christmassy (I blame the duck’s facial expression), but that’s okay, since we are considering making this a Christmas present; and after Christmas you might have enough of golden stars and Christmas trees and snowflakes. Of course, if you want to make your own recycled tea light holders, you can make your designs much more festive and use them exclusively with apple-cinnamon scented tea candles (or whatever your Christmas scent of choice is). Or you could just draw or stick on a less seasonal design, but listen to Christmas music or a Christmas movie while you’re decorating. How about inviting a group of friends? You could ask them to bring their own used up candle containers (which should be easy, considering that this is a season of increased candle usage) and have a little pre-Christmas crafting party. Do what you like as long as it’s fun!
The duck and I hope that you liked the story of how we turned grapes into Stollen (that’s how the saying goes, right?).
Look! This is what our new duck-tacular (um… not sure about that, duck) tea light holder looks like in action! 
What are your favorite pre-Christmas activities? Did you ever turn a disappointing discovery into something (debatably) pretty? We’d love to hear your stories of how you turned the raisins life gave to you into Stollen! (Okay, we might give up this stupid ‘saying’.)
See you tomorrow, with a post unrelated to candles! 😀
The Duck in... side 