DIY Unity Candle

I never envisioned myself as being a DIY bride.  I'm creative but not crafty.  I lack the patience that it has to piddle around with tiny details, and when something doesn't go right I just get frusterated and will find somewhere where I can either buy it or someone who can do it for me.  

But sometimes, I surprise myself.  I've done a lot more for this wedding than I had orginally anticipated.  After pricing out stationary and realizing that I'd have be crazy to pay so much for paper, I decided to take on all of our paper projects.  So far, so good.  I've made our table names (we're doing landmarks in Chicago as opposed to table #'s), menus, created our Save the Dates (printed by vistaprint),and assembled our invitations.  The invitations were from a Brides' kit that I picked up from Michael's.  We've received a lot of compliments on them so far.  

My latest venture was completed this past Sunday.  I decided to make our unity candle.  I didn't want just a basic plain unity candle (we're not traditional people), and the ones listed on Etsy were more than I wanted to spend for something that we are only going to use once.  So I decided to take matters into my own hands.    



The project took very little time and the total cost for everything, including the 2 holders & the stand was under $25.  Not too shabby! 

I used a sheer ribbon, so I had to make sure each piece was cut the same length so that one shade of green wouldn't be darker than the other (because wedding planning makes you do crazy things).  To get the ribbon to stick to the candle, I started with clear, double-sided tape.  Then I just wrapped the ribbon around, very evenly and used gem glue to keep the end of the ribbon to the candle.  I liked this glue because it works very well and it dries clear.  I did this to the two tapers and then added little gems to "dazzle" it up.

For the actual candle itself, I got my monograms made from IdoOriginals.  I would definitely recommend this website to anyone looking for monograms.  They were very timely and everything was exactly how I wanted it to be.  I used vellum paper to print out what I wanted to put on the candle.  I cut the paper to size and attached it with special vellum glue.  Warning, it does not stick very well to candles.  I had a hard time getting it to stay, so what did I use? Double-sided scotch tape.  It's towards the back so you can't see it at all when looking at the candle.  And it's a lot clearer than regular tape, so if you have to go this route, use the doubled sided tape.  I added some more razzle & dazzle and Voila!!!     

          

This weekend I'm working on programs & place cards.  Two more weeks people :-)