These DIY Christmas Tree candles look astonishingly beautiful, are FUN to make and are 100% safe to use. That's like a Christmas craft trifecta! Here's how to make these flameless tree lights.
Every year I come up with one great Christmas DIY. Not 10 or 12 ... one. Of course I post a lot more than that, but we all know only one of them is actually any good.
One year the DIY that bubbled forth in my brain was the elegant bookcase presents, an idea that I randomly made up completely in my head, on my own, while looking at them at my friend's house. The year before that it was the insanely popular Christmas dessert, The Snow Globe a la Mode as featured on Country Living.
This Christmas DIY is possibly my favourite to date because it hits all four Christmas craft criteria; easy, fun, affordable and impressive.
The DIY Christmas Tree Candles.
I know. They're beautiful and classic and old fashioned feeling. And they're easy. And fun. And affordable. The whole affordable thing is what prompted me to figure out this DIY. I've always loved the look of candles on Christmas trees because in my heart of hearts I'm an English Victorian lady (with a hunting dog named Muddles) and an entire staff to douse my tree whence it goes up in flames. Candles on a tree just look so nice.
Of course you can't have real candles on a tree because good candles are expensive ... and on fire.
Here's how to make Victorian looking Christmas candles for your tree.
(Printable version of the tutorial at the end of this post)
DIY Christmas tree candles
Materials
CLICK HERE FOR A PRINTABLE VERSION OF THE MATERIALS
Will make 48 candles.
- ½" rigid plastic pipe, 5' length x 3
- Hot glue gun and glue
- String of C6 clear LED lights (I used a total of 400 lights on a 7' tree)
- White, cream, orange, dark orange latex paint (just the cheap craft paint from the dollar store)
- Paintbrush
- Clear silicone
- Metal can
- Floral wire
- 48 Alligator clips
TOTAL COST: Approximately $15 for pipe, $5 for silicone, $5 for the paints, $5 for alligator clips. The rest you probably have. So the high end total is $30 for 48 candles.
Steps
CLICK HERE FOR A PRINTABLE VERSION OF THE STEPS
- Cut the plastic pipe into 3 ¼" lengths. (this length may differ a bit based on your particular string of lights as you'll see a bit later on) You can use a circular saw or a hacksaw to cut your plastic pipe.
2. Squeeze hot glue onto one end of the pipes to mimic dripping candle wax. This is your sheath.
3. Paint the sheath with a mixture of white and cream paint which will resemble wax.
TIP: Spray with a low sheen clear coat to make it resemble wax even more.
4. Remove 48 bulbs from your string of lights. (number of bulbs you do is optional but I used 48 candles for my tree) Paint each bulb with light orange paint and let dry. Once dry, paint the tips with dark orange.
TIP: For some reason you cannot buy a string of orange C6 LED lights at this time. Green? Yes. Blue? Yes. But not orange. That's why you have to paint the clear bulbs. If in the future orange is available you can buy those and avoid having to paint the bulbs. Possibly keep your eyes open around Halloween.
5. Cut a pop can in half and fill it with clear silicone.
6. Wrap a piece of floral wire around the base of each painted bulb and dip them in the silicone.
7. Hang the bulbs to dry overnight.
TIP: Make sure your bulbs are hanging straight down so the tips will be straight and not bent when they're dry.
8. Glue an alligator clip vertically at the base of the sheaths. I used Loctite's Super Glue but a couple of years later some of the alligator clips started to fall off when the glue became brittle, so I'd now recommend the world's best glue E6000.
Tip: You can buy a 12 pack of alligator clips at Michaels. You can get twice as many (24) for the same price on Amazon.
9. Gather your string of C6 lights.
10. Grasp the lighting wire in your fingers until it's bent like this.
TIP: The measurement from the tip of the socket to the base where my fingers are pinching is how long your plastic pipe pieces should be cut. This may vary with different brands of LED lights.
11. Insert your sheath over top. It will fit tight enough that the sheath won't fall off. Make sure there aren't any loose bits or sharp edges inside the sheath from cutting it because that can cut the wire as you push it through and you do NOT want to do that.
12. Insert your silicone bulb and there you have it. They're done.
12. To light your tree, clip your sheaths all around your tree where they look good. Space them out evenly but don't worry about getting them to stand straight at this point. Finally string your lights around your tree, inserting the cord and candle bulbs in the pre-placed sheaths as you go. Again. Don't worry about them being straight yet. They'll be all slanted and askew and you'll think this is a total fail. You will call your sister to tell her THIS is why you don't do anything off of stupid Pinterest. Relax. Have patience.
Once the tree is lit and all the bulbs and sheaths are placed, starting from the top down, straighten all the candles. They'll move and shift as you go, so just keep straightening them. Don't expect perfect if you're working with a real Christmas tree. Perfection is easier on a fake tree but it also isn't as authentic looking.
DIY Christmas Tree Candles.
Make a set of DIY Christmas tree candles from a regular string of lights, some plastic pile and a tube of silicone.
Materials
- ½" rigid plastic pipe, 5' length x 3
- Hot glue gun and glue
- String of C6 clear LED lights (I used a total of 400 lights on a 7' tree)
- White, cream, orange, dark orange latex paint (just the cheap craft paint from the dollar store)
- Paintbrush
- Clear silicone
- Metal can
- Floral wire
- 48 Alligator clips
Instructions
- Cut the plastic pipe to 3 ¼" lengths. (this length may differ a bit based on your particular string of lights as you’ll see a bit later on) You can use a circular saw or a hacksaw to cut your plastic pipe. (See step 10 to figure out how long your pieces of pipe should be.)
- Squeeze hot glue onto one end of the pipes to mimic dripping candle wax. This is your sheath.
- Paint the sheath with a mixture of white and cream paint which will resemble wax.
- Remove 48 bulbs from your string of lights. (number of bulbs you do is optional but I used 48 candles for my tree) Paint each bulb with light orange paint and let dry. Once dry, paint the tips with dark orange.
- Cut a pop can in half and fill it with clear silicone.
- Wrap a piece of floral wire around the base of each painted bulb and dip them in the silicone.
- Hang the bulbs to dry overnight.
- Glue an alligator clip vertically at the base of the sheaths. I used Loctite’s Super Glue.
- Gather your string of C6 lights.
- Grasp the lighting wire in your fingers until it’s bent like this. The measurement from the tip of the socket to the base where my fingers are pinching is how long your plastic pipe pieces should be cut. This may vary with different brands of LED lights.
- Insert your silicone bulb and there you have it. They’re done.
- Put your lights on the tree, clipping the candles where they fit and look good.
- Insert the bulbs.
- All the candles will be wonky, so straighten them from the top of the tree down.
Notes
After painting the candle sheaths you can spray them with a low sheen clear coat to make it resemble wax even more.
For some reason you cannot buy a string of orange C6 LED lights at this time. Green? Yes. Blue? Yes. But not orange. That’s why you have to get clear bulbs and paint them. If in the future orange is available you can buy those and avoid having to paint the bulbs. Possibly keep your eyes open around Halloween.
Make sure your bulbs are hanging straight down so the tips will be straight and not bent when they’re dry
I got my alligator clips on Amazon.
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NinaMargo
Karen, as always, nothing short of brilliant. Thank you for this and for the Snowglobe a la Mode. That will be a great project for my granddaughter and me while her mom is out shopping. (We'll be having more fun I think!)
Tracy
You should have posted this in February so I would them done by Christmas! Now, how am I going to open up all my presents with blistered fingertips covered in white paint? I'll kinda mad at you....only because I now how PVC pipe on my grocery list Ü
You are awesome!!
Karen
Ha! I was worried about posting this too early, being November and all, but I wanted everyone to have time to actually do it. I'll keep February in mind for next year's DIY ;) ~ karen!
Tracy
Smarty Pants! Your blog (and you Ü) are the best! ♥
Eileen
I love this idea because I had real candles Glowing and Sparkling around my house one Christmas season party/gala and happened to look over and saw that I was about 10 seconds from turning my dining room sheers into a wall of fire!! Since then, I've banned the real thing from my house in favor of the timed, wax ones. All I have to do now is buy stock in batteries, but it's worth it not to worry about setting the house in flames. Your candles are really clever and so pretty; the tree looks so charming, Especially because the candles aren't straight. It's looks so real and homey. Do you have any ideas for incorporating fragrance into the season. I've bought sprays, scent sticks, etc., which are fine, but don't last.
Karen
I use all of the above Eileen. A reader introduced me to Thymes Frasier Fir scent and I haven't looked back since. It used to be hard to find but now it's almost everywhere. The candles are strong enough to scent a whole room. I use the candles, room spray, hand soap, lotion and wax pots. It is all Frasier Fir, all the time in December. Ha! ~ karen
Christine Hilton
My asshat kids call my battery ones "menopause candles" because l can and will forget about them.
Terry
😂🤣😂🤣 that's too funny. Your kids sound like my grandsons
Grammy
Christine, tell your asshat kids that one of MY kids (I won't say which one, she knows who she is) set our house on fire when she was a teenager because she 1) had such a messy room, 2) had a candle burning in her bedroom (against the rules but she was a teenager), 3) fell asleep while candle was lit.
It melted down, caught something or other on fire, which fell off the dresser ONTO HER BED and -- voilá -- smoke alarm went off just as she yelled, "Dad! There's a fire!" So, at 4 a.m. in late November we were all standing on our front lawn in bathrobes and shoeless while we watched the fire department break out her bedroom windows to drag the smoldering/flaming mattress outside. That kid came so close to perishing in a fire that night it still makes my heart pound to think of it. Not to mention how distressed I was that there was so much fire and smoke damage to our home.
That was 35 years ago, but nobody uses real candles at home in our family any more. Certainly not that teenager who was scared straight by the incident and has only ever used the battery operated ones in her own home because of the fear of the flames.
Marilyn Meagher
It looks great! I love the copper pail.
Karen
LOL, that's my chicken feed holder! It was from my mother's house. I had to dump all their food out, clean it and bring it inside a few nights ago. ~ karen!
Melissa
I'm totally trying this!
Karen
I know, right? I don't even want to decorate the tree. I just want the candles. ~ karen!
Layra
I like the candles, but I love your boots! Where did you get them?
Karen
The boots on the ground in front of the tree are my old riding boots from when I was a teenager and the ones on my feet are Hermes. I got them used at an antique market. ~ karen!
Annie
WOW!!!!!!!!!!! Great job! Merry Christmas to you Karen and thank you for the fun and informative articles. You rock!
Alena
I am thinking I will probably not have a tree this year (probably the second time in my life - the first time when I moved to my current house exactly 12 years ago (this time of the year) and at Christmas, the house did not look very cozy; I just spray-painted a big dead branch red and I hung some chandelier crystals on it in lieu of decorations) because I expect a friend and there will be 3 greyhounds milling around. I have lots of houseplants this year that are really taking up every available space and I don't think there is any left for a tree. Otherwise I would probably try to make the candles since I have string lights galore.
Why did you dip the candles in the silicone? To make them more opaque or to give them the long tips?
Karen
It gives it the appearance of a flame. You see the glowing inside of it, plus the shape etc. etc. ~ karen!
Adrienne in Atlanta
Interesting! A friend had a few hand dipped faux candles similar to this concept, and they smelled like cinnamon. She asked about them next time she went back to the store where she bought them, and they had added cinnamon to the silicone. When they were switched on, the heat would cause the cinnamon to diffuse slightly. I love cinnamon so the idea always stuck with me. (The smell probably doesn't last more than a few years, I'd guess.)
Karen
Yep. It's a thing. You add cinnamon or you can add essential oil to the silicone, but with LED bulbs there is no heat to warm them up and disperse the scent. ~ karen!
Ritz
Neato!!
TucsonPatty
This is absolutely wonderful!!! I make "stuff" to sell at my salon...wonder if this would sell. Is it enough work that I wouldn't want to give it up? People wouldn't want to fuss with it once they got it home because they weren't the person who put all the work into it?? I've just now talked myself out of it...too busy with other "makings". Right now it is jars with Christmas bulbs and dew drop lights inside them. They are pretty.
Karen
I'd say they're too much work for selling. All the work is fun (the hot glue candle drips is a LOT of fun, lol) but there's a lot of waiting for things to dry. :/ ~ karen!
Julie C
Okay - I knew it... you're a genius!!
Paula
Very nice! Thanks again.
Mindy Northrop
Insert wide mouthed emoji. Times three.
I literally shopped for these last week. On Amazon. No way was I paying that. I have donkeys, goats and a horse to feed, and chase off train tracks, for crying out loud. This might actually make me go to town for the string of lights. I'm pretty sure I've got everything else. So friggin awesome.
TucsonPatty
A joke from years ago: Little Johnny was late to school one day and the teacher asked him why? He replied, " The fence was down and the goats got out and got on the railroad tracks. The train came along and ripped their asses off!" "Little Johnny! Don't say asses, say rectum!" He replied "Wrecked 'um hell! Tore 'um all apart!" I don't know why I have always laughed and laughed at this joke!
Mindy Northrop
Bahahahahahaha, I love it! I'll have to remember that one for any new visitors. Ha!
Karen
The price of them to buy is INSANE. Money much better spent on hay and halters. ~ karen!
Heidi Ruckriegel
Looks good. But not as good as the tree my grandparents had when I was a child in Germany. A real tree, with silver decorations and beeswax candles on little holders. We'd sit on Christmas eve and take bets on when a particular candle would go out, while eating home-made German christmas biscuits. There was the scent of beeswax, pine and cinnamon and spices. Those were the days...
Alena
Hi Heidi,
I have similar memories since I grew up in Europe. The Christmas lights novelty did not make it to us until I was in my early teens, I think, so having real candles on a Christmas tree (and sparklers, I loved the sparklers) was a normal thing. We never had a problem with the tree catching on fire or anything else. Except, I think, once a candle dripped a few drops of wax onto the Persian rug (tree skirts weren't a thing and so to this day, I don't use one) even though we had some plastic sheets underneath the tree and Mom was ready to have a heart attack (but since it was Christmas, she reconsidered).
Also, trees were not cut two months ahead so that at Christmas time you actually had a beautifully fresh tree that smelled magnificent ..... yes, those were the days.
I am hoping Karen will come up with a DIY for sparklers. :-)
MaggieB
Real candles still available now. And the forestry commission typically on the second or third advent weekend has a an area where you go and pick your yree, cut it down, haul back to the car park and they net it up for you. Then I'll put candles on that one with tiny white led lights wrapped around for when we're not in room. But love this idea for the tree in the Hof using outdoor lights.
judy
our son started buying rooted trees for us decades ago. Looked at a real estate listing for that house-the one on the corner looks like it's 20 plus ft tall. Makes me nostalgic that a Christmas memory is still growing in another State.
Nicole
So how did you guys prevent the tree from catching fire? Was it just because it was such green wood? I've always wanted to know that every time I've read a description of a tree with real candles!
MaggieB
Yes, basically. And keep it well watered, and someone always in room once they are lit. But typically that's not a problem because your lighting them because you are going to be there. There are candles that burn quite quickly but the beeswax are special I have to say!
alena
We actually did not even have the tree in water. I remember that my dad made a metal stand for the tree himself (basically it was a hollow pipe about 10" long, with two wing screws that could be tightened and three spidery feet) and that was it. When I was 10 or so I could not care less about watering the tree and quite frankly, I don't even know if any water-holding Christmas tree stands were available at that time (or tree stands in general - I grew up in Eastern Europe).
The candles were lit only if we were in the living room, the tree was never left unattended.
Karen
Just to be safe, I think now is a good time to state that a local store (the bakery) burned to the ground a few years ago because their store Christmas Tree caught on fire. Just putting it out there. :) ~ karen!
donna
... some years ago I photographed a tree with real candles for a home decor magazine and the photo made the cover. The magazine got smacked down by the fire department by way of a stern letter and they had to print an apology and retraction of that particular idea in very large print in the next issue.
Karen
Yep, a real tree is the only way to go. Although I am still covered in sap marks. I can picture those little candleholders. We must have had them at one point. ~ karen!
mia
The tree is so beautiful, really - what a great idea! And I'm so impressed with that snow globe dessert I can barely contain myself...that is fabulous, gotta make it for Christmas. But what I'm really waiting for Ms. Santa to bring...hoping and praying for....is a recipe for turkey. Yes, a succulent, extra-special, Karen-recipe turkey with gravy. Each year I do something different with my turkey, which I serve at both Thanksgiving and Christmas because once just isn't enough...and some of those turkeys turned out fabulous (like the one I marinated in the Mexican orange liqueur, Controy, for 24 hours before cooking, back when I was living in Mexico). That was truly beyond words! However, because I do something different every year, I never know if my turkey is going to turn out well...and so I keep scanning your blog archives for a yummy and reliably-tested Karen turkey recipe. Just saying' - I love love love the tree, and the dessert is to die for - but I'm desperate for a turkey recipe! Maybe this year you could give us the gift of true Turkey Enlightenment...the Karen way!<:}
Karen
I don't have any extravagant turkey recipe I'm afraid Mia. I just brine it in a regular brine of equal parts salt and sugar (usually overnight) and then I dry it, separate the skin from the meat by sliding my hand under it, slather meat with butter, insert sage leaves under skin as well and roast it. Nothing fancy. ~ karen!
martina
I have made this turkey two years running and it's perfection! I'll never make it another way. Spatchcocking (he!) makes the meat cook so evenly and perfectly.
http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/11/how-to-spatchcock-cook-turkey-thanksgiving-fast-easy-way-spatchcocked.html
MaggieB
O.M.G. Mrs! This HAS to be the greatest most awesome-sauce Christmas DIY E.V.E.R!!! I'm gibbering with impressed at a base celll level of excitement and superlatives. Will have to make a big mug of Hot chocolate, grab a plate of biscuits (cookies not sausage gravy variety) for dunking and dipping and fishing out with a spoon because I'm going to have to sit down and read through again. Absolutely the bath burping angel farts of the Season award has to be given to you, no contest!
Karen
Thank you. I agree. LOL! Now go eat a biscuit. ~ karen!
Teri
Fiendishly clever. Your tree looks all homey and cosy and Christmassy.
Fonda
Great idea!!! You pissed, burped and farted out a good ONE! Come...Let us adore you!
Karen
Ha! ~ karen
Lynn
OH Karen that has to be the coolest diy I have ever seen 🌲🎄 I love it
Karen
Thanks! I have to say I agree, lol. But I'm kind of on a candle DIY high right now so ... I'm sure I'll learn to be more humble about them in a week or so. ~ karen!
Jan in Waterdown
Humble, schmumble . . . bask in the glow, Girl. This one is epic. Humility is for losers, imho. 😏