I absolutely love candles; I love seeing the flames, I love the smell, they’re just awesome to have around. But we have cats who climb on every horizontal surface we own, so it’s a bit dangerous to have lit candles in the house. Luckily, there’s a super easy way to put your candles up on the wall and out of the way: Make some wall-mounted tea light holders out of recycled tin cans!
How cool is that?!
This project is so easy; it took me about ten minutes total. You need:
- empty tuna cans or cat food cans
- paint (spray paint or regular paint is fine)
- tea lights
- scrapbook paper, or any pretty paper
- a gluestick
- washi tape (optional)
- adhesive strips for hanging the cans on the wall
I have been saving our empty cat food tins for months now, and I’m so excited to have finally found a use for them! JM had to stop me from making about twenty of these; for now we just have three. 🙂
I started by cleaning out my can. You don’t want any of that fishy smell left!
Once the cans were clean and dry, I took them outside and gave the insides a quick coat of gold spray paint. You can easily just paint the inside with a brush if you don’t have spray paint, or you can leave them unpainted if you like that silver color.
Once the paint dries, cut a strip of paper to size to cover the outside of the can. Glue one end of the paper down, wrap it around the can, and glue down the other end.
If you want further decoration, wrap a piece of washi tape around the tea light.
I used little foam 3M sticky squares to hang these on the wall. Anything sticky on both sides will work, but be careful because there is a rim around the bottom of the cans that sticks out a bit. Your sticky needs to be thicker than that rim so that the adhesive still hits the wall when you go to hang the can up.
Pretty cool huh?
How do you do candles in your home? Do you have to worry about rambunctious pets like we do? These little cans are actually doubly awesome because they keep the candles away from the cats, and they allow me to decorate with candles even though we don’t have a mantel or any real horizontal decorating surface.
Mel says
Love Candles, I have to do this! They look beautiful
Christine says
Oh WOW Jessi!!! Soooooo pretty!!!! Love how it gives such a nice ambience!
Thanks so much for sharing this at The DIY Dreamer.. From Dream To Reality!
Fifi@AboutBloggingTime! says
I love this!! What a great idea. I know all about cats, we have (2) and they think they own the house and get into everything.
Newest follower via the hop. ☺
PJ says
so cute!
I think if you filled the inside with little mirrors, like a disco ball it would look wicked cool!
going to have to buy the tuna that comes in a can now instead of a pouch!
Talitha says
Ok, seriously. That is adorable! I love it!
Kendra @ A Proverbs 31 Wife says
I love this idea! Now if only I had some tins… Oh! and some spray paint 😉
Steph @ meet.make.laugh. says
Wow what a great idea! These look fabulous…. you would never know they are cat food tins! 🙂
Katie says
That. Is.
The coolest ever!
And totally doable, too. Now I guess we just need to eat some tuna (or cat food). ^_^
Pat Toler says
Love the idea of the wall candles…these would be pretty on a screened & windowed
Florida room also. Your cats must be mischievous, we were able to train ours to
stay off the counters, tables, etc. At first they loved knocking over a cup with a straw,
but that was their worst. Love your ideas that brighten up the home!
Susan@Organized31 says
Brilliant idea! Love that you repurposed the tuna can and it’s so gorgeous now you’d never know what it was in it’s former life. I’d have to use the battery tea lights because I have kids, but it’d still look great. CAN’t wait to try it. 😉