Glittering Candle Holders for Diwali

Diwali is a festival of lights, diyas and candles light up every doorstep and fireworks light up the night skies. I am feeling very nostalgic this year and missing India, the beautifully decorated markets, television advertisements, street food, late night shopping and saris. 

Diwali cleaning is a very big project (much bigger than spring cleaning), every home is warm and welcoming for visitors. I am still in the process of cleaning and getting rid of all unwanted stuff from my house and it looks like this year I just might achieve my goals! 

Every craft project I do reminds me of the very basic techniques which I learned in school and that is where I get my inspiration from as well. These candle holders are results of applying some wheat paste/ cornflour paste/starch on a balloon and using different materials to form bowl shaped objects. For the small candle holders I used water balloons and latex balloons for the others. Materials for the structure are just anything that glitters, metallic paper confetti, coarse glitter,sequins and fabrics.

Here is how I made the glues-

• wheat paste: just add wheat flour to water and boil them till it becomes smooth paste
• Cornflour paste: Add craft glue, cornflour and water in a bowl. If the paste needs to be thickened add more cornflour or glue to achieve desired consistency.
• Starch: Just add fabric stiffener to boiling water and make a smooth paste

I used cornflour paste for the coarse glitter and confetti candle holders, different paste and materials produce different results so trials are highly recommended. Apply a layer of vaseline or oil to the balloon before applying any of the above pastes. Once my first layer of any material dries up, I add the second layer and so on. If you want just add some newspaper bits after the first layer of glitter or confetti and then finish with glitter or confetti, this will add more body to the candle holder. This will work best if your material is not dense. It will take longer to dry with the newspaper layers (min 24 hours ). I used wheat paste for the metallic paper bowl and starch to make bowls from fabric (jute and silk). Add glitter to the surface of fabrics when wet to give the sparkly effect. Once the candle holders have dried just pop the balloons and remove any bits of balloons from the holder. Trim the edges of these holders to your liking or leave them rough for an abstract shape.. Place tea light or bigger candles in the holders and light them up for Diwali. 

Cornflour paste dries with a white tinge as you can see the image below, while wheat paste and starch dries clear.

Get creative with the materials for the body and you will be rewarded for sure when the balloon pops! I did have some disappointments as well but the overall result was a success. These candle holders are delicate and beautiful, light up any special occasion with these handmade delights.

Fairy Lights Dress Up-Option 2

As I mentioned in my last post, I did another version for the fairy lights for Diwali and here it is. This one is quite similar but I have added streamers and the size is much smaller. 

 I have cut thinner strips from the gold sheet of paper (card stock thickness) and punched holes through out the strip of paper. Then I cut some thinner strips of fluoro coloured streamer, any colour would look good. Stick them to one edge of the gold strip of paper with glue stick. Now just roll the gold strip and let the sheet take its own shape. Since it is thicker paper, I got a pentagonal shape instead of a round cylindrical shape, when i folded the paper. Stick the ends together with sticky tape and hang it onto your fairy lights with a string or fishing line.

These looks just awesome during the day as they would at night with the Diwali diyas.

Dressed Up Fairy Lights for Diwali

This year for Diwali I want to do as much handicraft as I can besides trying to clean and organise my house at the same time. There is less than a month before the celebrations! I absolutely love this month every year as there is one festival after another right from Navratri to Bhai dooj and Diwali is my absolute favourite. Beautiful lights and fireworks fill up the dark sky and the food, Oh the food!!!! Oh how I miss home on Diwali, so many beautiful childhood memories! 

We have some old fairy lights left from last year and I wanted to dress them up for this year. When it comes to craft for an Indian festival I just want it all metallic, well mostly metallic or the rich indian colours. I have done two versions of these lights one just metallic(shown below) and the other with some fluoro colours and gold (which I'll show in my next post).

These lights are gold with red and green metallic fringes. I have made a small string of lights which would look quite similar to a bunting indoors up against any plain wall.

It is super easy to jazz up any old fairy lights and you can make different versions of this with different colours. Here is what you need gold paper cut into strips of any thickness you prefer. Bright metallic sheets of paper to cut into fringes of around 1 cm thickness, Cotton thread or fishing line,scissors,fringe scissors,glue stick,sticky tape and a single hole punch.

Fold the gold strip of paper to form a rectangular box, a wide fold followed by a thinner fold, another wide fold and finally a thinner fold. Use your fringe scissors or simple scissors to cut a fringe and stick the fringe to one edge of the gold strip. Fold the strip and stick the end with a sticky tape as shown in the picture below. Punch holes on the wider sides of the rectangle box in any pattern you like I have just punched three holes on each side and one single hole on the remaining two sides to tie the thread. Finally just tie these box shaped dresses to the lights ensuring that each fairy light is inside each box and plug them in.

These look beautiful either ways, plugged in or not and I hope you enjoy making these lights.