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DIY Votive Candle Holders Made with Mod Podge

Elevate your home decor with these cute DIY votive candle holders made with Mod Podge! You’ll use recycled glasses and book pages for this idea, so you won’t spend a lot of money for this pretty, vintage inspired project.

Skills Required: Beginner. You can decorate candle holders with little crafting experience. It does help to have experience with Mod Podge so you know how to apply it and smooth down the paper without wrinkles.

DIY Votive Candle Holders Made with Mod Podge

Over at Hammer Like a Girl, we usually try to use materials that have been cast off, scrounged, or salvaged. So when we first were planning this DIY votives project, we thought it would be a great idea to use cut-off bottles.

You’ve all seen the technique online – soak string in acetone, wrap it around a bottle, light it on fire, turn turn turn to get an even burn and when the flame starts to die down, dunk it ice water, and the bottle breaks where the string was, essentially turning a bottle into a glass.

decoupage candle holders using old glasses and book pages

It sounds so cool (and easy). We went out and bought acetone, dug in our recycling bins and went to work. Maybe we were doing something wrong, but for the life of us, we could not get a nice clean break.

The edges were jagged-y, like something you’d see in a bar fight. So with singed arm hair, we went to the Goodwill, where we bought three glasses for $.69/each instead. We decided to use those for a recycled craft instead. WE came up with these votives!

Here’s some instructions – not how to singe your arm hair – but for making unique decoupage votive candle holders. If you want to Mod Podge on glass, this is a perfect craft to get you started.

Gather These Supplies

  • Drinking glasses, preferably with straight sides
  • Ephemera of your choice – we used an old poetry book, a fiction magazine, and old postage stamps
  • Mod Podge Matte (you can use any Mod Podge formula)
  • Brush
  • X-Acto knife
  • Fine sandpaper (220-grit)
  • Bottle for holding the glass while decoupaging

Tips and Thoughts for This Project

The straighter the sides of your drinking glasses, the better. We lucked out at Goodwill and found a large, a medium, and a small glass, making a perfect little varied size “set”.

Old wrapping paper, books, magazines, and brown craft paper work great for this project. We used an old poetry book, stamp collection and a literary magazine from 1954 (with a great orange advertisement for whiskey).

If you don’t want to use originals, you can use laserjet (no smearing or bleeding!) copies instead and hang onto the originals.

decoupage candle holder

There you go! A simple project (if you skip the part where you light your arm hair a string on fire) that has some fun effects when you place lit candles inside.

DIY votive candle holders

You can customize these votive candle holders and use your favorite pattern papers, kids drawings, etc.

modge podge candle holder

Get the printable how to for this craft idea below!

Yield: 3 votives

Mod Podge Candle Holder

decoupage candle holders using old glasses and book pages

These easy DIY votive candle holders are made from old glasses and use Mod Podge – you won’t spend a lot of money for this pretty, vintage inspired home decor.

Prep Time 10 minutes
Active Time 20 minutes
Dry Time 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour
Difficulty Easy
Estimated Cost $2

Materials

  • Drinking glasses, preferably with straight sides
  • Ephemera of your choice – an old poetry book, a fiction magazine, and old postage stamps
  • Mod Podge

Tools

  • Brush
  • X-Acto knife
  • Fine sandpaper (220-grit)
  • Bottle for holding the glasses

Instructions

  1. Wash the glasses inside and out with mild soap and warm water. Let dry.Plain Glasses
  2. Select some of your favorite papers to cover your votive holders. Old wrapping paper, books, magazines, craft paper work great.Pile of ephemera
  3. Cut the paper so it is slightly larger than the glass. The paper should hang over the top and bottom edges a little bit.Wrapping paper around a glass to check the fit
  4. Spread Mod Podge onto the back of the paper.Spreading Mod Podge onto the back of a piece of paper
  5. Turn the glass on its side, and lay the paper over the top of the glass, letting the excess paper hang off the top/bottom edges.Hand wrapping a magazine page around glass
  6. Roll the glass on the table until the paper covers the glass.Rolling the paper around the glass to cover
  7. Smooth the paper onto the glass, working from the center outward to the edges.Hand smoothing paper onto the glass
  8. If you have a gap, cut another piece of paper to cover it. Keep the design in mind; here's a chance to add a little interest. Let dry thoroughly.Adding a small piece of paper to close the gap
  9. Trim the excess paper off the top by using an X-Acto knife. Repeat along the bottom edge.Trim the excess paper at the top and bottom with a craft knife
  10. If needed, touch up areas along the bottom of the glass (where it curves) with Mod Podge. Gently press down/in with fingers, working your way around the glass.Touch up the edges of the paper on the glass with Mod Podge
  11. Let Mod Podge dry thoroughly. If the edges are a little rough, you can take fine sandpaper and gently touch up the edges, sanding in an inward direction.Sanding the edges of the paper on the glass with Mod Podge
  12. Place the glass upside-down on a stand of some sort (we used a bottle) and apply a coat of Mod Podge to the outside. Let dry and repeat.Apply a final coat of Mod Podge to the outside of the pages
  13. Add tealights - either real or LED - to finish. Never leave any real flames unattended.decoupage candle holders using old glasses and book pages

Did You Make This Project?

Please leave a rating or share a photo on Pinterest!


If you enjoyed these DIY votive candle holders, let me know in the comments! I’d also love for you to check out these other recycled craft ideas:

Votive Candle Holders Made from Glasses Story

Linda

Thursday 28th of July 2022

I love this craft. It gives me ideas.

Wendy

Thursday 4th of September 2014

Love these votive holders! Can you also use fabric scraps or is it better to use paper? Thanks!

Hammer Like a Girl

Friday 5th of September 2014

I haven't tried with fabric, but would think it would work just fine! The only thing that may not work quite as well is trimming off the excess top/bottom. The paper is stiff so it works to use an X-Acto, but the fabric would be more soft and would flex a lot when you try to slice through it. The bottom edge you could just tuck underneath (no one would see it) but the top edge looks nice when it ends at the lip of the glass. Good luck, give it a try! :)

Michelle

Sunday 31st of August 2014

Amy, those are cute! Love the stamps. I am glad I am not the only one who cannot get that burning string, acetone, ice water trick to work. I tried many times and it wouldn't break at all or not a clean break. I gave up luckily without any injuries. Off the subject but I recently found sock monkey print fabric and made a baby quilt for my niece and gave it as a gift with a sock monkey. It is a silvery grey minky fabric on the back with a red ruffle around it. Awe, I know you like those.

Amy

Monday 1st of September 2014

Hi Michelle! That baby quilt sound delightful! You'll have to send me a pic - I want one! ;D

CuteCreativeCrafter

Saturday 30th of August 2014

I have just nominated you to do the libster award

Nicki Rochead

Thursday 28th of August 2014

Such a great idea. Love the way they look.

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