Easy DIY Square Candle Holders
These candle holders will fit your average 1 ½” tea light. I used scrap lumber that I had left in my shop to make these. At the home improvement stores, they typically don’t have 4×4 boards that are less than 4ft long, and since you only need just under 2ft to make 3 candle holders, you can either save the leftover wood for another project, or you can totally make 6 of these out of a 4ft board.
Follow the tutorial below to make these candle holders yourself, and let me know if you do!
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What you’ll need:
Materials:
- (1) 4 x 4 x 4’ pine board (Not treated! And you only need about 2ft, but I haven’t seen them sold in that size.)
- Sandpaper- I used 80 grit, 120 grit, then 220 grit
- Wood stain- I used Early American by Minwax
Tools used:
- Miter saw
- Orbital sander
- 1 ½” Spade bit
- Drill
- Vice clamp (optional)
Cut list:
- (1) 4 x 4 x 10 ½”
- (1) 4 x 4 x 7 ½”
- (1) 4 x 4 x 4 ½”
Step 1: Sand your wood
- You can cut your wood first, but I find that sanding one long piece of wood is easier than sanding a bunch of small pieces.
- The board I had was pretty rough, so I took my time sanding it smooth with 80 grit sandpaper. I then moved up to 120 grit, and then to 220 grit, to make it feel real niiiice.
- I seriously love my orbital sander and use it for just about every project. You can find the one I use HERE.
Step 2: Cut your wood
- Use a miter saw, or other saw of your choice, to cut your pieces.
- The tallest holder in the bunch is 10 ½”, then 7 ½”, then 4 ½” long.
Step 3: Drill your holes
- I bought this 1 ½” spade bit from Amazon to make the holes for the tea lights, and it seemed to work pretty well. As you can see in the picture below, I used painter’s tape to allow myself to know when I needed to stop drilling. Measure the height of your tea light to know where to put the tape!
- You will be drilling in the tops of each piece, so mark the center of the board with an “x”.
- I clamped my boards into my vice clamp, because this spade bit is pretty big and it would have easily thrown my wood if I didn’t have it held or clamped down in some way. If you don’t have a vice clamp, carefully try other ways of clamping your wood down. One possible way is to clamp the wood on its side with a regular clamp, and then drill the holes from the side.
- These holes could also be cut on a drill press, if you have one.
Step 4: Stain, let dry, and use!
- Clean off your wood to remove dust.
- As you can see by the pictures above, I actually stained the pieces before I drilled the holes. What’s nice about this project is that you don’t have to do everything in a specific order. Looking back, I would recommend staining after drilling, so that’s why I made the plans this way.
- For these candle holders, I did one coat of Minwax’s Early American wood stain. I am so loving this color right now, I want to put it on everything!
- Let your pieces dry (drying times vary according to what your particular stain says, the temperature it is at the moment, and your humidity)
- Once they are dry, you are free to put your tea lights in them and use them to your heart’s content.
Happy building!
-Whitney
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