#arts and crafts

Hey, lovelies. So here’s the thing: I feel wasteful when it comes to empty prayer candles. Of course, a good way to reuse them would be making more candles from their containers. However, that can be a little expensive and I wanted some alternative uses. I thought about it for a while, even googling if anyone had any ideas. Nothing stuck out to me and for weeks I had this empty cylinder on my dresser staring me in the eye. Yesterday, it randomly hit me and I started my crafting. Honestly, this one is really simple like most of my crafts I’ve shown you guys and inexpensive.

I decided to turn it into a wand holder or a incense stick holder, it could be used for both. I even thought about putting it in the kitchen for spoons and things if you’re a kitchen witch. I decided to made the cylinder a tree trunk with roots at the bottom. Another idea I thought of was making a squid which might be neat for a sea witch but more difficult.

What I used:

• an empty and clean prayer candle
• air dry clay
• clear quartz and amethyst
• glitter
• glossy mod podge
• a mechanical pencil
• acrylic paint and paint brushes

I didn’t really want to do a brown tree trunk, I decided on purple even though I didn’t have enough purple paint. I mixed together Apple Barrel’s Cool Blue and Flag Red in case the color is something you specifically want. In the pictures, it looks kind of brown though. The crystals are optional and you can replace them with anything you want. My glitter, prayer candle, and mod podge were all from Dollar Tree. My air dry clay is by Crayola and was about 5 dollars and from Walmart. My paint was also from Walmart.

First things first, I covered the entire container in clay, smoothing it out a little. I took a mechanical pencil to create the texture of the trunk by just drawing and making lines randomly (later I’d gently do the same for the roots). At the bottom, I started the roots which were my biggest hurdle. I made some of my roots more intricate and tiny and as a result they did come off and I had to fix them. I let the clay dry before mixing my paint and painting it all the dark purple. After some time drying again, I mixed together pink glitter, silver glitter, and mod podge. I painted on the mod podge and let it dry again. Lastly, I took my crystals and wrapped more clay around them and on the very back to place them against the trunk. After letting that dry, I repeated the painting process and added the mod podge. Some more time drying (whew) and I was done! Easy peasy lemon squeezy.