Raise your hand if you go out and buy new candles for each special occasion. Stop that! Don’t you know that one set of candles can serve as many different sets? That way, you have a set of candles for Halloween, a set for Thanksgiving, a set for Christmas. When you make candle bands you can give one set of candles many different looks. And, for each holiday or special occasion, the entire candle set will appear to be made just for that event. Candle bands don’t even require any sewing so the craft isn’t a huge production. Just get some felt and you’ll have your candle bands ready for the next holiday.
Choose felt in an appropriate color for each holiday or special occasion. Felt is really cheap yet looks fabulous when you turn it into candle bands. If you plan to make interchangeable bands, a variety pack of felt will offer you nearly any color you would need. Instead of felt you can also use cotton and some other fabrics.
Purchase felt letters to create the message or word you want on the bands. Or, cut your own letters. Use a stencil to draw out the letters; make them all capital letters. Craft stores sell bags of felt letters and those make it really easy to create the candle bands.
Measure around one pillar candle to decide how long to cut the felt. Decide how wide you want the felt by measuring the height of the candle, and knocking a few inches off of that measurement. Cut one band for each candle; all of the bands should be the same size for each set. (You might want wide bands for a Thanksgiving set and more narrow bands for a Christmas set.)
Although you can sew the letters onto the bands, if you want, it’s much faster to use fabric glue to attach them. It’s found at craft or fabric stores and quickly holds the felt pieces together.
After placing one letter on each band, place a piece of peel-n-stick Velcro at each end of one band, and wrap the band around the candle. An alternative to this is to sew the ends together to make a slip-on version.
The bands can spell out “Thanksgiving”, “Merry Christmas”, or just “Welcome”. Align them down the center of the table, arrange them on a mantle, or even set them outside on a porch railing. If you need to make the candles double-sided, simply attach a letter on the opposite side of the candle. Anytime you want, just take off the old bands and put on another set. Make several sets of bands and you’ll always have a new candle arrangement for every special occasion.
Candle Bands