Saint Patrick's Day is coming up and we wanted to create a fun decorative item for our house that was festive & functional.  What better project than some St. Patrick's Day Celebration Candles?!?

 

This quick & simple craft is inexpensive, but practical too.  It also makes a great project to do with a group of kids - especially for Sunday school, youth groups and religious education. 

 

This was easy to do and ends up being so much more useful that cheap paper & plastic decorations that will just get tossed out the next week.  Put them on a shelf, as a centerpiece or wherever you want to add a little Irish flair.

 

These candles still feature all the quintessential Irish holiday symbols like shamrocks and four leaf clovers:

 

Celtic crosses and knots:

 

And of course the reason for the holiday itself, Saint Patrick:

 

- Pillar and votive candles (dollar store)

- Celtic Buttons (Erin Go Bragh set)

- St. Patrick glass dome cabochons

- Grosgrain or satin ribbon 

- Glue (we recommend E6000)

- Lighter 

Start by cleaning the glass of the candles with rubbing alcohol for best adhesion.

 

Cut a length of ribbon that will wrap around each candle with one inch of overlap.  Heat seal the cut ends with a lighter to prevent fraying:

 

Add small dabs of glue along each end and the center of the ribbon.

 

Apply ribbon to the center of each candle.

 

If using shank buttons like, my solid shamrocks, you can snip the shank off with a sharp pair of scissors, craft knife or pliers to get a nice flat back.

 

Add some glue to the backs of the buttons, cabochons and flat backs.

 

For the open shapes like these shamrocks, we use a toothpick to spread the glue:

 

We glued a Saint Patrick to the center of our pillar candle...

 

and  surrounded him with shamrock and Celtic cross flat backs:

 

For our votives we used some Celtic knots and shamrock buttons:

 

Allow glue to dry for 24hrs with candles on their sides to prevent slippage.  Enjoy your new Saint Patrick's Day Candles!