-Crafting, DIY, Projects, Decorating

I love looking on the Terrain site (a sister brand of Anthropologie) since it mostly specializes in natural "garden lifestyle" brands and natural seasonal decor or nature driven brands. In Terrain's home decor section, I discovered several taper candle wreaths or candle cuffs which truly inspired me to make my own! Here are a few selections of Terrain's candle cuffs:

Hello and Welcome to this month's Creative Craft Hop co-hosted by Sara @Birdz of a Feather and Donna @Modern on Monticello who take turns every other month! The lovely and creative Sara is our host for this month! I'm so glad you're here checking out our creative projects for the month of May!

Candle cuffs can turn a plain taper candle into an artistic creation, adding extra sparkle and style. Imagine adding them to a tablescape for a simple and festive centerpiece or transforming your plain candles into festive decor anywhere in your home. So let's turn a plain taper candle into a stunning creation by making a taper candle cuff! Here's how!

Materials:

Taper candle & candle holder
Floral wire (20 gauge and 22 gauge)
Measuring tape/Ruler
Wire cutters/nylon jaw pliers/round nose pliers
Crystal Beads

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How To:

Making a DIY wire candle cuff is a simple project that involves wrapping or twisting floral wire to create a decorative base that will fit a taper candle, then embellishing it with crystals or beads to form wire branches around the decorative wire base.

First, I loosely measured around the taper candle and got about a not quite three inch diameter. You want to be able to easily place the cuff on the candle and not have the cuff fit too snug and possibly scraping the wax.

Then I started guesstimating about how much wire I needed to twist, etc. and came up with twelve inches to fold and twist . . .

and created a plain twisted wire ring similar to the Terrain style that would fit around the taper candle. If you look at the Terrain's pictures of candle cuffs, the twisted wire looked hand twisted and very natural like the one I created.

Then I thought I should make something a bit fancier with crystals since the twisted wire ring looked so plain and I wanted to make something different from the Terrain ones. Since the candle I'm using is pink, I pulled out my pink crystals (8mm) and a ruler and placed rows of two crystals along the three inch mark of my ruler - totaling 22 crystals to start.

Then, once again, I guesstimated the length of wire (about 14" folded) I needed to weave the crystals onto the wire.

Starting with groups of four crystals and sliding them onto the wire . . .

and twisting the wire once.

Then adding groups of four crystals to the same wire and twisting the wire once the crystals were added until . . .

all the crystals were added to the wire. I needed to add two more crystals to make the grouping of four even for a total of twenty four crystals.

Then I started shaping a ring of the wired grouped crystals . . .

and closing the ring of crystals with the wire that is left on one side. Next, wrapping another folded wire into the ring wire on the opposite side.

To balance the look, two more folded wires were wrapped into the wired crystal ring on opposite sides - in other words, the folded wires are secured in the 12, 3, 6, & 9 positions. *I realized that I had to increase the length of wire added on the remaining three to about 24" giving me 12" when folded so I would have enough wire without having to add more.

Now, it's time to decide how to decorate the wire extensions. Begin by making several twists of wire to one of the folded wires extended from the decorative ring of crystals.

Thread a bead to the middle of one of the wires, and twist several times to secure the bead in place. Thread a second bead about 1 1/2 inches (or less), from the first twist, and twist again several times.

Make a third extension, adding a bead and twisting wires, as before.

Continue alternating wires, threading a bead and twisting to form branches

until . . .

you've created three extension branches. I forgot to take a pic without the flowers attached to the ends of the branches. So don't dwell on the flowers right now, lol! Continue making branch extensions to the three other group of wires.

To complete the look, lets make crystal and wire flowers to attach to the end of each wire extensions. To do this, begin by taking a 15" length of 22 gauge wire, folding one end over about two inches. Then slide a bead on all the way down to where the wire begins to fold.

Take the end of the longer length wire and insert it into the opening of the crystal bead and . . .

pull the wire end through the crystal until a small loop is formed at one end of the bead.

Once you have the small loop, separate the wires on the other end and . . .

insert another bead onto the longer wire, as before.

Then take the end of the wire and insert it in the opening of the crystal. Pulling the wire through the crystal until . . .

a small loop is formed. Be sure to move the crystal as close to the previous crystal as the loop is formed.

Continue adding crystals to the wire until . . .

the third crystal is attached and . . .

the forth one and finally . . .

the fifth one is attached. Be sure to straighten out the longer wires and begin twisting them together.

Then take the twisted wire and . . .

twirl it into the center of the beads, cutting off any excess twisted wire.

Make several more for a total of . . .

twelve flowers - for each candle cuff. I know there are eight flowers pictured below, but you'll need twelve flowers all together.

Attach the beaded flowers by wrapping the wire ends of the branch extensions to the back of the flowers, through to the front and back again, twisting the wires together to secure. Straightening and smoothing the twisted wires out as much as possible.

I think I got carried away with making this taper candle cuff, lol! It seems to be a bit bigger than my inspirations! But I'm loving it! And hope you'll try your hand at making one.