Votive Holders

Step 1: DIY landscape votive holders

I spend a stupid amount of time on pinterest looking at craft projects to get ideas. I recently found this adorable votive holder while browsing and really liked the way it looked, but I wasn't able to find similar source images very easily.

So I dumbed it down a bit and made some quick and dirty LED votive holders that look really great with minimal effort. :D You can use landscapes or skylines - whichever you like! They're a nice way to get a bit of light without having to leave clunky looking LED tealights out and about.

Step 2: what you'll need:

images with high contrast from a book or printed on regular printer paper
an exacto knife
glue - I chose a glue stick
LED tealights

I found that black and white images looked best - but feel free to try other things! I think I'm going to make some hand drawn ones next.

Also, when looking at LED tealights, I really recommend the yellow ones - they can make your votive holders look like the sun is setting, which is really pretty. :D

Step 3: resizing, editing and printing

I did a little googling and found a few images I liked:

I found that the best size for them was 1000px wide and 600-800px tall. (or, 8 inches wide by 4+ inches tall)

I cropped them a bit and edited a bit if needed.

Step 4: trimming

Trim off the bottom of the page. If you have a big white border at the top, trim that down to about 1/8 inch. Leave a 1/4-1/2 inch white border on each edge of the photo.

Step 5: folding

Fold over the top edge to the back of the paper so you can't see any of the white from the front. Then fold over one of the side edges the same way.

Step 6: gluing

Run a line of glue down the edge of the side you didn't fold over. Press the folded edge onto the glue and hold it until it sets up. It should be nice and round now!