Advent DIY Day 12: Gold-Dipped Log Candleholders By Lifeovereasy

Every day between December 1st and December 25th, we bring you a new festive ‘how to’ as part of our DIY Advent series.

Lifeovereasy is where you can find everything you need to know about lifestyle, home decor, and DIY. Dani and Nads are blogging sisters. How often does that happen? With Lifeovereasy, you get two for the price of one! Nads is a marketing whiz, Dani is an engineer, but the blog is where they have their fun. They’re into photography and pottery, making anything and everything, cooking (Nads) and cooking-avoiding (Dani). Creating their lives and their spaces is what inspires them. They’re big on fun and friends and their crazy Italian family. Even their dogs are brothers!

What is your favourite handmade present you’ve ever received from someone?

I think our favourite gifts are always the ones we use the most, because we get to enjoy them so often. We both have a set of handblown glasses from one of our favourite artists that was a gift from our mother. We use these every day, and they’ve lasted for years. They’re solid and beautiful and make even a glass of water feel special.

Do you have a special tradition you do every holiday season?

We have lots of holiday traditions, and it seems we are always making new ones! Maybe our oldest holiday tradition is collecting ornaments and adding to our collections each year. Nadia got us started on this when we were really young, and we have kept it up each year, even passing the tradition on to Dani’s girls. Our trees are filled with hundreds of different ornaments, and they each tell a bit of our story. We have to buy the biggest trees we can fit into our homes, and the trees get so full they almost topple over. It’s a really magical moment when the last ornament is finally up. We also have a tradition of making each other fun presents, and we often try something new. This has led to quite a few crafting disasters over the years!

For you, how is Etsy “where one-of-a-kind gifts come from”?

For us, there is no other place like Etsy! We’re both big travellers and one of our favourite things to do when we’re on the road is to hunt for local, handmade crafts. That used to be the best way to fill our homes with unique and beautiful things. Now, Etsy brings all of that to our doorstep. We get to connect with craftspeople and artisans from all over. Every hand made object has its own story, and there’s nothing more one-of-a-kind than that.

Gold-Dipped Log Candleholders

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Love the casual rustic look you see everywhere these days? Want to add a glam touch for the holidays? Make yourself a tableful of these gorgeous gold-dipped log candleholders!

At Lifeovereasy, we can’t get enough of candles this time of year. Nothing’s nicer than adding a warm glow to your dark winter nights. For this easy craft, we up-cycled firewood from the woodpile and turned it into an armful of simple and stunning candleholders. And we are talking cheap! Using four small logs, we made ten candleholders for less than £5. You can’t beat that! The best part is that once you’re set up, it’s just as easy to make a dozen as it is to make one, so you can make enough for a dramatic holiday display. Read on for all you need to know to make yourself a batch of these beauties.

Supplies:

• Wooden logs, cut to lengths from 3.5 to 10 inches long
• Wood boring drill
• Safety glasses
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Masking tape
• Woden primer
• Newspaper
• Votive candles

Steps:

We started with some logs from the cottage woodpile. We loved the aged look of these particular logs. You can experiment with different types of logs, depending on what you have available. If you are sawing and drilling these yourself, you might want to choose a soft wood like pine.

We used logs that were between 2½ to 4 inches wide. We cut them into random lengths, from 3½ to 10 inches long. You can sand them afterwards if you like, or go with the rustic look to keep things simple. In order to fit a typical votive candle, drill a hole using a 1.5” wood boring bit. Mark the bit with tape at the ¾” mark so that you know how deep to drill. Make sure to wear safety glasses and clamp the logs down to hold them steady. If you are using a hand drill, hold it firmly with both hands so that it doesn’t jerk around.

We had some help with the cutting and drilling from a friend with a woodshop. Here you can see the process as he experiments with some birch logs.

Once the logs are cut and drilled, you can get to the fun part – painting! Although we love the organic look of dipping, the brands of liquid metallic gold paint we sourced were a little pricey, so we decided to approximate the look with inexpensive gold spraypaint. We used Krylon Indoor/Outdoor Brilliant Metallic paint in Gold, which cost less than £5.

Start by taping off an uneven line with masking tape. Paint below the line with primer. You can skip this step, but we found the gold paint sank into the wood leaving a dull finish. To get a nice shiny gold look, you really need to start with a coat of primer.

After the primer has dried, mask off the top section with newspaper. Apply the spray paint in several light coats until you have the desired look. The more coats you apply, the shinier the metallic finish. We used three coats.

Let the paint dry and remove the tape. Voilà – rustic glam candleholders! Our batch of ten gave us many options for display. They look great in sets of two, or groups of three or five. For a dramatic look, group them all together on a mantle, sideboard, or your dining room table. The sky’s the limit.

Have you made any Christmas advent DIYs? We’d love to see – send us pictures with the hashtag #ChristmasAdventDIY and we’ll share them on Facebook.com/EtsyUK and Twitter @EtsyUK.