Mid-Summer Loose Ends: Part 2

Yes, it is definitely mid-summer and yes, I am definitely all about tying up loose ends these days - read more about my mission to get things done here. Last time, I tackled some homemade patterned envelopes and today I moved on to a polka dot tealight candle holder.

Now, up until about a week ago, I had no idea that I would ever want a polka dot tealight candle holder. The thought never occurred to me until I saw this tutorial by Penelope and Pip on Poppytalk. 

Penelope and Pip on Poppytalk

Cute, right? But still, I didn't feel any stirrings until my mind connected it with a little glass votive holder that I had brought home from school last June. In that previous life, it had done duty by holding my loose paper clips, a noble and worthy calling. But in my home, I have other places to store my paper clips, and suddenly, this vessel lost its meaning and purpose in life. Sure, it could just be a plain old candle holder again, but after the glorious experience of being a paper clip holder, this seemed like a let down.

Now I saw an exciting new future for my little glass dish. It would become a polka dot tealight candle holder! The only one of its kind, in a house bursting with ordinary tealight candle holders! Yes, yes, sign me up for this tutorial immediately.

As I've explained before, I love DIY projects because I never follow the rules. It seems I'm completely incapable of it. Yet whether it's a lucky serendipity or sheer force of will, I end up with results that bear at least a passing resemblance to the example project, and better yet, please me.

The tutorial called for six required materials:

1. Gold spray paint (you want the super delux 24kt kind!)
2. Tealight holders (we all have these lying around)
3. Scissors
4. Dot stickers
5. Pencil
6. Painter's tape

I ended up using exactly two of those items - the tealight holder and the scissors. Here's how my tale of improvisation and faking-it-till-I-make-it played out:

I had no painters tape handy, so I layered together several strips of regular masking tape till I had the width I needed. Easy.

Nothing against pencils, but I decided to use a pen. 

I thought I had regular dot stickers but alas, I did not. However, I did find several thousand of these hole reinforcers, and they are at least as cute as a plain dot.

Whoops. No gold paint. But how about some metallic taupe? It's a warm, silvery color and seems like a perfectly reasonable substitute.

After spray-painting like a champ, and picking out all those paint-covered stickers with a straight pin (the perfect tool for such a chore), I lit up a candle and rejoiced as my transformed paper clip dish began its new life as a polka dot tealight candle holder. Bravo!

Next up: using my laundry room shelves as an excuse to buy cute fabric.