AdventCandles

Kerry’s Outdoor Advent Candle display

Materials:
- 1” x 8” – 6 or eight foot boards (two)
- fence planks – (five) six-foot planks
- plywood – ¼ inch thick, two feet by four feet
- eyes and hooks (five each, small)
- paint (one quart each: purple, green, white;  sample size: pink, yellow, orange)
     (optional: black spraypaint)
- wood glue
- (16) wood screws, 2 inches

Tools:
- power drill with ¼” bit, also 1/8” bit
- chopsaw
- jigsaw
- paintbrush (2” angle is what I used)
- screwdriver

 

Candle stand:
Cut the two 1x8s to four feet (4’) in length.
Using the 1x8 scraps, cut eight pieces 1½ inches in length. These are your spacers.

Find the center (two feet) of the 1x8 planks, and measure 1¼” to the right and left.
Cut out a (two-and-a-half inches by three-and-five-eighth inches) rectangle from each plank.

Glue a spacer at each end of two of the planks, and a second spacer about six inches in – leaving enough room to slide a fenceplank candle between them, with ¼” wiggle room.
Glue the other two planks to the top so you have two plank sandwiches, each one with four spacers.

Drive two screws through each spacer (don’t forget to make pilot holes) for added stability.

Paint green.

These two plank sandwiches fit into each other in an X, providing candle slots at each end, plus one in the center.

Candles:
Cut four of the fence planks to five feet (5’) in length.
Cut the fifth fence plank to five foot three inches (5’3”).
At the top of each fence plank, draw a teardrop about 9½” tip to bottom.
   The tip should be about 1½” thick, and the widest part should leave half an inch of wood on each side.

Paint three planks purple, one pink, and the tallest one white.
I painted the edges white to make them stand out a little bit,
and I painted the area around the flames green to make that part disappear a little bit.

Attach a hook inside the top of each teardrop.

Cut a notch out of the bottom of the white candle, 2¾” wide and 3¾” high.
This will allow the white candle to straddle the joint.

Flames:
The flames will be 3-dimensional and will swing in the teardrop holes of the candles.
On the plywood, draw teardrop shape about 8” tip to bottom, about ¾” wide at the tip, and about 4¼” at the widest part. This teardrop should fit inside the candle’s teardrop with at least a ¼” clearance on all sides.
Draw and cut out ten (10) of these teardrops.

On five of them, cut out a 4” slot from the center of the tip to the center of the teardrop, ¼” wide.
Paint these five yellow, both sides.

On the other five of them, cut out a 4” slot from the center of the base to the center of the teardrop, ¼” wide. Paint these five orange, both sides.

The yellow and orange should slide into one another to make a 3D colorful flame.

Attach an eye in the top of each orange piece. These will allow you to add a flame to each candle, and each flame will flicker in the wind.