Decorate Candles for Fall with Birch Bark
This post will show you how to decorate flameless fall candles using real River Birch bark. Don’t you just love using items from nature! I sure do.
A while back I took Browser out for a walk and was looking for some rustic bark that I might use to wrap around some flameless or battery candles. You will find real candles in my house, but only in locations where I can safely light them for their delicious smell.
We’ve had two bad experiences with real candles in the past so I’ve sworn off using anything but the battery or flameless candles for decoration. Plus, battery candles are so realistic these days!
I noticed that our neighbors across the street (the Sheltons) have a tree in their front yard with shaggy bark. The bark peeled off in pretty good size pieces and it was soft and pliable. Some pieces were thin as paper! It looked like I had found my source)))
Growing up a Country Girl
Now I’m a country girl and have lived in the country all my life. But I didn’t know that the tree was a River Birch. I’ve spent plenty of time playing in the woods, helping to build playhouses, exploring, and bending small trees over to ride like horses. We picked up sweet gum balls to cover with foil for Christmas ornaments. We hunted for hickory and scaley bark nuts. In the late summer, we would search for muscadines and eat our fill before going back to the house. Sometimes our dad would send us to the woods to bring back green hickory twigs for smoking barbecue chicken on the grill.
It was not uncommon for us to gather wood and build fires around the place either. And yes, once my friend and I set the whole pasture on fire. We walked around the pasture and lit clumps of briars with matches. I guess we thought that they would just burn out and nothing else would catch on fire. The briars gave us such grief since we played barefoot most of the time in the summer. I remember my mother setting us both down on the back doorstep and telling us not to move while she and a neighbor put out the fire. It never dawned on us how dangerous a thing we had done. Sorry….I’m chasing rabbits! Back to using the bark to decorate fall candles))
Wrapping the Candles
Put enough of the pieces of bark together to go around your battery candle. I would not recommend using bark on a real candle! Use scotch tape to hold the pieces together if necessary. You can also use tiny bits of hot glue to hold the bark pieces together to decorate your candles.
Tie the bark in place with jute, leather strips, or raffia. You could use narrow ribbon too, but I was looking for a rustic effect so I didn’t.
You can also use wood beads also to accent the flameless candles. I threaded assorted wood beads onto the raffia for a simple look. Wood beads are trending again this year you know!
Varmints
Be prepared to see a few unwanted creatures in your bark))) You probably could spray the birch bark pieces with Hot Shot if they still make that stuff. Spray the pieces before you decorate your fall candles. There were several ants crawling around on my craft table while I was working. And a couple of unknown little bugs.
Leather Scraps
I picked up a bag of leather scraps at Hobby Lobby a while back and finally found a use for them! The wooden beads also came from Hobby Lobby…..I could spend days in that place!
The battery candle on the left was covered with a “leather look” paper. It was my first attempt at making a fall candle a few weeks ago. I like the ones with real bark, leather, and wooden beads the best))
So go for a walk in the woods, or down the street. You might be surprised at what you might find, right in your own backyard. Or your neighbor’s yard! Thanks to the Sheltons for letting me forage around at their place)))
I absolutely love your Birch bark covered battery candles Jeannie! Also loved looking at all the wood beads/ideas! Thank you for all the time and effort you put into your blog…so professional, so awesome!! Have a great day!