Spooky Halloween Lights- Paper Towel Roll Candles

People craft for many reasons. To reduce stress, to have fun, or to make money if what you make is something other people will buy. A common theme is the idea that what you make is generally cheaper than what you can buy at the store. That totally depends on what it is, and what material you use, which brings me to paper towel rolls. There are so many projects involving toilet paper or paper towel rolls. And why not? They're something that literally everyone has in their home, and as such don't cost any extra to save and use. But I can't help but wonder if this is one of those instances where you get what you pay for. Can you make something out of paper towel rolls and have them actually look like anything but paper towel rolls?

What I'm doing today will be a smaller version of this, because I didn't plan ahead and I only had three paper towel rolls and two toilet paper rolls. Also, that big thing looked like it would be a nightmare to assemble and I would rather not. Even I have my limits.

The third paper towel roll was cut in half so that I could make three rows of 'candles'. I also cut a little bit off the tops of the other two paper towel rolls to make the layers more uneven and realistic looking. There is no one right way to do it, though. whatever looks right to you.

Supplies:

-Paper towel and/or toilet paper rolls

-Flameless tea lights

-Hot glue gun

-Black spray paint

Before you do anything else, take some masking tape and make a little spot for your tea lights. If you get it on there before you glue, you can hide the tape lines under the glue drips. Figure out how you want your candles to be arranged and leave them set up for reference and so you can attach pieces as you go. Pick a roll to start with and begin adding drips of glue. The trick to getting the glue to look like candle wax is to start at the bottom of where you want your drip to be, and work your way up. Varying lengths for the drips help to make it more realistic and give it some character. If you're using a standard glue gun be warned, this uses quite a bit of glue. Depending on how drippy you make your candles, each one uses one to two glue sticks. I made mine pretty drippy, but I feel like I could have done more. Also, attaching the candles as you go keeps you from adding drips where you need to glue pieces together.

This came together fairly quickly and held together without issue. I am glad that I decided to only do six candles though. Any more and I would have gotten tired of the glue gun.

After glue dries, take your candle outside and thoroughly cover with paint. I actually did two coats in an attempt to cover up those spiral lines on the cardboard. It didn't help, but they weren't super noticeable after the first coat anyway. I used black spray paint, partly because I already had some from earlier projects, but also because I happened to find black tea lights. I saw orange ones too, which would have looked really good here too, but I didn't want to have to get another can of spray paint. Using what you already have keeps you from becoming a craft supply hoarder. Maybe.

Once that paint dries, all you have to do is pop those tea lights in and you're good to go! I think that these came out looking so cool and I'm legit excited to have them on my front step on Halloween night. For a minute I thought about adding a coat of spray glitter, but decided against it. My only concern is that they might blow away in a strong wind. It would be totally possible to weight these if you wanted to. I mean, there is a decent amount of empty space and you could fill these with whatever before you paint them. If they're staying inside though, I think they're perfect just like this.

You guys, I am having so much fun with this, and I will continue my spooky light saga on Friday. After that I will be taking requests for anything that you want to see me try.