Fall Candle Craft in 15 Minutes

Ok, listen. I love candles. LOVE ‘em. Candles that burn and the battery operated ones. Rather than adding to my “collection” I just wrap them for different seasons & holidays.

Here’s the thing – yes, this is a ridiculously easy craft. So easy, in fact, that I planned on making it a kids craft. And it certainly would be fun for the kiddos, but I had so much fun painting these I thought, why should they get all the fun?

Start with a regular ol’ paper bag. Other paper will work too. Tissue paper would be awesome, but harder to paint on for the little ones. Paper bags are much more substantial.

Cut one panel of the bag, crumble it all up and then uncrumple it but don’t smooth it out completely. You want all of those folds and wrinkles.

Since it’s Fall, or at least it should be Fall even though it doesn’t feel like it outside, I chose Fall colors. Any colors will work, just keep in mind the paper bag background.

Before you get started, place some wax paper under the bag, unless you can leave it in place to dry.

Wet the paper with water first with either a brush or holding it under the tap. I added some glaze to keep it wet. It still works if you don’t have glaze, but it’s more fun with it. Just sayin’.

At first I watered down the paint but you really don’t need to if your bag is pretty well saturated.

Then just paint the bag. Any ol’ way. Let the kids go wild. Fingers would work great too.

So . . . doesn’t look like much here. But it was still fun to smoosh paint all around. But wait. Now comes the magic. . .

. . . rubbing alcohol. Not for the kids, ok? You get to do this part, but they’ll have fun watching what happens next. (so will you.)

Drip the alcohol onto the wet paint and watch what happens. It spreads in cool random circles and blotches.

I just dribbled it from the bottle. Eye droppers would be great but I didn’t have one. Just protect your kiddos while doing this so the alcohol doesn’t happen to splash on them.

Weird, huh? But in a cool artsy way.

I had to make a 2nd one with just yellow and orange. Can you spy the fall leaf? It wasn’t intentional – it was just the way the alcohol moved the paint.

I didn’t want a perfectly even edge so I tore the borders while the paper was still wet. And by wet I mean sopping wet. Since it’s so warm I moved it, on the wax paper, outside and it dried really quickly. Too quickly for this time of year. Just sayin’.

You can use a blow dryer too, of course. On low. Unless you want to move the paint/water/alcohol around some more.

Once the paper dries, just tie it onto a candle with a strand of raffia.

Notice how the color fades a bit? Yeah, keep that in mind. That’s why it’s a great kids craft. They’ll make sure the colors stay bright!

Or maybe tie it with a piece of jute. It doesn’t matter. You could glue on some fall leaves, berries or whatever too.

But because the colors faded so much I wasn’t too sure about the whole thing. I mean, sure, the painting was too much fun but do I really want to display these candles now?

Hmm. Maybe some background color will help.

Better. This was just orange and yellow, wrapped on a battery operated ivory candle.

This wrap had the brown paint. I’m liking it with the background colors.

Maybe even some more color?

Yeah. That’s better.

Much better.

Now my plain candles have their little fall “sweaters” on with little pops of color!

I can’t wait to try this with grandson & his 2 y.o. sister. On a battery operated candle, of course.

If you love 15 minute crafts, (are you kidding? who doesn’t?) check out an entire line-up of them at Moore Craft Time and The Country Chic Cottage. Some seriously cute stuff!