Western General Store

When I saw these bunt feet table legs in the local home improvement store I thought I could make a candle holder. I unscrewed the screw from the wood using a vice. I cut off the head of a nail and drilled a small hole in the top of the wood and bottom of taper candle and inserted the nail into the candle. I placed the candle onto the wood base. For a different candle holder I drilled a hole a little smaller than the screw into the top of the first piece and the other piece and drilled a hole into the bottom of a pillar candle. I screwed the second wood leg piece onto the first piece and screwed the candle onto the top. I made and screwed on another piece to the bottom to give it more stability and finished all pieces with light brown Briwax. You could paint or stain any color to go with your décor. Here it is with a flameless candle.

My neighbor had some old cedar fence posts and was kind enough to let me use them for this project. The post was cut into pieces of 5, 7, and 9 inches long. A 1 5/8" hole was drilled in the top with a drill press which is a perfect size for tea lights. I cut the bottom of the cedar post that had been decaying in the ground and made a long tea light holder. It was smaller and the outside color was grey. It is 28" long. When the post was cut the exposed cedar is beautiful and smells so good. Here is a side view of the bottom of the post. I left one end natural and ragged. These would be great for a holiday table center piece with evergreen branches or any time of year for rustic décor.

Here's another way to use the star nails in a project. We had 4x4 cedar lumber in which I cut into graduated sizes. I drilled a hole in the top for a candle. I drilled holes a little smaller than the nails and used a cloth and hammer to attach them to the wood. Pictured is a medium, small and tiny star nail. The wood and stars were left unfinished. But you could paint them any color or seal them with a polyurethane spray. Over time the stars might rust if you don't seal them. But they would be more rustic! These  star candle holders  can be purchased on the website.

When I wade through my husband's woodworking shop I'm always finding things that might be repurposed into something useful or artistic. He makes boat tillers and when I saw these tiller "drops" I thought candle holders! In other words, these are the unused portions of the tiller that he throws away. Ok, put a tea light in the top and voila! But they weren't wide enough to put a tea light so I came up with the idea to have a trim piece at the top and bottom big enough to hold a tea light and it's also more stable. These are made from mahogany and ash. I drilled a hole in the top piece for the tea light and screwed it into to the tiller. Screwed the bottom piece on and sprayed it with polyurethane. I wrapped rope from the craft store and tied into a reef knot.

Many years ago a friend gave us several boards from huge pallets. They have been sitting around the shop until we could find some use for them. I came up with the idea to cut them up and turn them into candle holders .  It took a lot of sanding and no small chore to drill the holes. I'm not even sure what type of wood it is. So here they are bare bones and ready for creativity.