Macabre Paper Towel Roll Dripping Wax Candles

Happy New Year, Valentines Day, MLK day, Presidents day, and anything else that may have passed and I may have left out. I hope everyone has had a lovely start to this New Year 2013.
It's now 247 days left until Halloween, at least it is here where I am. Right now 247 days may seem like a lot and a little early to be thinking about Halloween , however, any true Halloween enthusiast will tell you each day passing is one less day to get your build on. Halloween is a terrific Holiday to get some family bonding in, so gather the family, pick a project and set some time aside to meet and work together through out the year towards your perfectly chilling Halloween you will be happy you did. It is easy to get started, all you have to do is pick a theme for your next years yard display, Haunted house or Halloween party. Then once the plan is made gather what you need. There are so many great terrorific Halloween resource, How-to's, tutorials ,free printables here on the web. @Garage of Evil is one of them. The garage is a central hub for all things Halloween and it's up all year long, 24 days a week. If you are looking for inspiration, help with a project, anything Halloween related this is the perfect place to start.




So there it is the big inspirational speech for Halloween 2013! I hope you will check in through out the year to see whats new, to get inspired and or be moved enough to create something really chilling.

I thought I would share a couple of my faux candle creations that I have been working on, there are more in the works , however, I will save those for later time. The first one is a Skeleton rising up from the melted wax. It started out as a crawling candle like this one below; just taller.




But then, one of the legs started to resemble an arm reaching out and I started rolling tape and building the rib cage. Then found these skull heads and well there you have it a full bodied skeleton, wax dripping tentacles, holding smaller skulls. It just happens sometimes, if a candle project sits unfinished in my view for any length of time the more chances of it turning into something other than what it started out as is a probability.

















I created him the same way I did all the other candles using only paper, glue, tape, paint and my imagination. For those who are new to the House here are the directions to my original faux candles that are made from items you probable have on hand. Not sure if I could do a how-to on this one, he wasn't really planned out and I didn't document the process. Not to worry there will be plenty of how-to's through out the year.





This one is a work in progress. It's a creepy tree with a wicked face which will light up, wax branches and wax arms holding candles spilling melted wax. Not sure how he will look upon his finish, there is always the possibility that he will change as well, one can never be sure.













I will post more picture of it as it progresses. I will be excited to have it finished. Thanks for stopping by and if you have any questions feel free!

DIY Candle Poject by Hunter

This is Hunter! My rockin cool nephew! He had a project to do for English class. The objective was to turn trash into a viable working object. He choose to make what else? Candles Yay! Anyway, the title of his project was "One man's trash is another man's treasure!" How perfect an opportunity to use, what else, the paper towel roll that ends up in the trash. He put together a little photo shoot showing his project and had mom send it over to me to share, here it is.

A note about my Sister in law's house. She has the neighborhood house where all the kids end up after school and on the weekends. No matter when you drop by you are going to find kids running in and out. They have the fun house on the block, the one with the very large tree in the backyard, with the gigantic tree house built in it, the trampoline, tree swing, etc... inside there is the huge screen TV for video games, movies, guitar hero, etc. Oh and she always has plenty of snacks and drinks. My sister in law is huge on keeping all the kids fed and hydrated! A lot of cooking and creating goes on there, so it didn't surprise me too much when I received these pictures of Hunter's project, I love it. Thanks Jodi and Hunter!

Here are the pictures, I hope they serve to motivate and show you how easy and fun it is to make these candle so you can have fun too!




Here he is showing the glass pebble that he use to weigh the candle down. How cute!









His candles are ready for glue drips!










Here he's applying the hot glue to make the candle drips.











Hard at work!











All painted!









Finish!



Working candles from throw away trash! Great job Hunter! Hope you got a A on this project!

If anyone else ventures into making these paper towel roll and hot glue candles please leave a link in the comments box. I would love to share them here on the House of Dewberry. Have fun! Here is the link to the Candle How-to

DIY Halloween Paper Towel Roll and Tealight Candles

This project is all about reusing "throw- a -way" items and re purposing them into something useful. Here I used the cardboard paper towel roll. Something one would normally just throw away can easily be re-purposed into a creative, inexpensive, easy, Halloween decoration or prop. I remembered a how-to I came across in which one created Halloween candles using PVC pipe. I loved the idea and had every intention of doing just that until I remembered I didn't have any PVC, although, I did have a paper towel roll! I really hadn't any idea if it would work just thought I would try anyway. It replaced the PVC perfectly and for the candle flame I used a tea light!

For this project you will need:
Paper towel rolls
Toilet paper rolls
Scissors
Glue gun
Glue sticks
Masking tape
Plastic tea lights
Glass pebbles
Craft paints
Paint brush








Because the candles are made from a light weight paper towel roll the top of the candle will have most of it's weight to carry from the glue, therefore, making it top heavy, which can make it tip over easily. I glued glass pebbles that I had left over from another project to the bottom of my candles to weight it down. You can use anything that will fit into the bottom end of your roll, small rock, bolt, etc, anything that is safe and will give it some weight. Here is how I used the glass pebbles. I lay the glass pebble on the sticky side of my masking tape and then tape it to the bottom of my roll. You can also let the glue slip down onto wax paper the peel the paper off leaving the flatted glue, this will help balance the candle as well.

For the top I take the masking tape and "sticky side" down I place the tealight on it then push the tealight and tape down into the top of the roll, I do this three or four times until the top invert is covered. This will give support for the tealight to sit down into the top of the candle.
It should look like this once you are finished with the tape. The tealight should fit easily down into the support and be flush with the top of the roll. Sorry for the blurry pic.




Now that you have the top and bottom done remove the tealight. You are ready to make the dripping wax part of the candle. To do this take your heated glue gun and place it up at the top ridge of the roll then squeeze the the trigger and let the glue slip down the side of the roll. Do this over and over letting the glue act like the dripping wax. Here you can be as creative as you wish, if you like a really drippy candle then add a lot of glue drips, if you just want a few drips as if the candle has not been lit long then only drip a few. It is completely up to you. Once you are done with this part you are ready to paint it.



Inexpensive acrylic craft paint is my choice for this project, however, you can also use spray paint. I find brush on less messy. I give it a healthy coating of paint then set it out to dry.

Once the black is dry, I take white paint and a soft brush if you do not have a soft paint brush handy, and you don't feel like running to the nearest paint store you can use a large make up brush for applying this part. The brush just needs to be soft. Take your white paint and lightly brush it against the candle this will highlight the raised parts of the candle giving a two tone effect and add definition to the drips.

Now you can paint the top of your tealight to match the candle color or leave it white it is up to you the creator.

The decorating possibility using these home made paper candles are endless they can be used anywhere.Here is a picture of a table display I used some of my candles in.

This is a great project for the whole family. It is easy enough for younger children as long a they have supervision. For everyone else it can
easily be expanded on when imagination is applied the possibilities are endless!
Enjoy!