This is the second year Erica made a majority of her Christmas presents...

...and I see it as an accomplishment. I only bought gifts for my mom, her boyfriend Mike, (my soon-to-be step-dad, actually!) and Wes. I made tea light candle holders for my coworkers and a few very special friends this year. I would have posted this before Christmas but I was afraid someone would read this and it would ruin the surprise. They're not really Christmas-y, actually, so I guess the timing of this post doesn't matter. I hope everyone had a spectacular Christmas and an even more wonderful New Year! : )

These are super simple. Here are tutorials of all the candle jars shown above.

Candle #1:
Materials needed - jar with lid, whole coffee beans, tea light candles, hot glue, and ribbon

1. Fill the jar half way with coffee beans and add the tea light to the middle.

2. Hot glue the ribbon to the lid. Keep the lid on the candle when not burning. Remove lid to burn.

3. When you burn the tea light, the entire room should smell like fresh brewed coffee.

Candle #2:
Materials needed - small circular jar, cinnamon sticks (my size jar needed one and a half packs), tea light, hot glue and ribbon (I think I use hot glue and ribbon for everything!)
1. Hot glue the cinnamon sticks all around the jar. Hot glue dries really quickly so I just used small dabs of glue. I also glued around and in between the sticks. My sticks were taller than the jar so it looked like the jar was made of cinnamon sticks, which I thought looked neat. If that's not your taste, you can measure and cut the sticks.
2. Tie a ribbon around the jar.
3. When you burn the tea light, the room will smell cinnamon-y and warm.

Candle #3:
Materials needed - glass jar, tea lights, Elmers glue, hot glue, marbles, pearls, glitter, paint brush, newspaper (as a floor covering -- glitter is messy!), cardstock or cardboard

1. Hot glue marbles and pearls around the jar. Arrange in any pattern you wish. I used a ton of hot glue because I was paranoid of my marbles and pearls coming off. LOL
2. Measure a piece of card stock or cardboard just a pinch smaller the size of your jar with ornaments glued on. Glue the jar onto the cardboard or stock (depending on which you have). This will further prevent them from falling off.
3. Spread glue all over the rest of the jar and sprinkle generously with glitter. I did this over newspaper. I still got glitter all over the ottoman and carpet...sorry, Wes.
4. Put the tea light in and it should be super sparkly when the candle's lit.

Candle #4: (this one is really similar to the one I just did)
Materials needed - glass jar, "gems" - they're actually decorative fillers, tiny pebbles (like the ones at the bottom of aquariums), hot glue, and a tea light
1. Hot glue decorative fillers around the jar. I found them surprisingly easy to glue on.
2. Remove excess hot glue and finger prints from the jar. I used a Clorox wipe.
3. Fill with a very shallow layer of pebbles & place in tea light.

I don't have a close up finished picture of this because I was running out of time and I absentmindedly wrapped them without taking a picture.  The one on the bottom right square is pretty close to complete. And, yes, Sadie loves helping. : )