spring thrills

Thank God Spring has arrived. I was ready to give up! I was going nuts dragging the outdoor cushions in and out every other day:)  but now that the weather has improved my thoughts have turned back to my patio. I wanted to create a some additional mood lighting out there ... Candles would do the trick I thought.  I went to purchase 5 pillar candles and was shocked at the cost, between  $25-35 per CANDLE... $125 for candles seemed extreme. No freaking way!!!

After catching my breath I though -- I can beat that.  I went to the hardware store and purchased a $2 bag of concrete and went to work. My plan was to make fake pillars with indents for tea light candles and voila instant mood, and  waaaaay better price!

mixed right in the container

Too easy.  I took a few empty plastic cylindrical bottles and mixed the concrete right in them.  I used the plastic Niagara spray starch containers. (Ignore why I had so many, I keep  cool shaped plastic for potential projects)

Anyway, I added enough water to make it look like cake batter or peanut butter.  It's hard to get this wrong, even if it's a tad watery it will still work. It will just take longer to dry out.  Then I grabbed  a smaller plastic container, roughly the same size as the tea lights.  I sprayed this with PAM cooking spray so it would release easier when almost set.



Then I inserted that small one into the mixture.  To weigh it down a bit I added some rice, anything will do really.  Lastly I lay something flat over the top of the entire pillar-- to keep it set lower.
Otherwise it might float to the surface and not give me the depth I needed.



Practically done.  Now just let time do its magic.  About 6 hours later I removed the small plastic insert from the centre and left the rest to continue drying.   The next day I peeled the plastic off the concrete pillar and BAM! there it was.

Note the concrete will still be dark not fully dry and soft.  This is good because if you get any dings cutting it out you can just use your fingers or some sand paper to smooth the ding out, depending on how dry it is.

If you really wanted to be frugal you could PAM the big container and reuse it, but trying to save the container makes the release harder, up to you. I didn't bother this time.  Depending on your container you can get interesting patterns and very smooth, almost glass like pillars.  Too cool and all for just a few dollars.  Tea candles I had on hand so no $$ outlay there :). 

Here they are :
Yaaaay, can't wait till dark!

Tool Diva