Music-Themed Candle Craft

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by toucanpiano

Every year I make my students a music-themed gift around the holidays (usually an ornament! You can check out last year’s gift here). I have a lot of students so I always opt for a handmade gift because 1) I love crafting and showing my love for others through crafting and 2) it’s extremely cost effective.

I gift them to my students at our last lesson of the year and it always warms my heart when parents share pictures of my ornaments on their trees year after year. This year I decided to transform battery-operated candles into little piano themed lights for their pianos at home. I made a total of 36 candles and the final cost was roughly $1.50/candle (not including the time to make them, which was several hours spread out over 3 days. Time is always something to keep in mind when crafting in quantity!).

If you’d like to watch me craft a candle, check out my YouTube short:

For this craft you will need:

Picture of tools and supplies needed to complete the craft. Tools required are hot glue gun and glue, Mod Podge waterbased sealer and glue, paintbrush, scissors, bowl, and nail file. Supplies needed are battery-operated candles, music note napkins, glitter, twine and your choice of embellishments (such as ribbon, keyboard charm, jingle bells, and sequin holly leaves).

Start by opening up the napkin and loosely measuring how many candles you can cover with a single napkin. My candles were 2 inches high and 1.5 inches in diameter, which allowed me to cut the napkin into eight equal rectangles. Cut the napkin according to the measurements of your candles.

Music note napkin unfolded with a pair of scissors hovering over it, indicating that the napkin should be cut into rectangles to fit the battery-operated candles.
Music napkin cut into eight equal rectangles.

The napkins I used have 3 plies (layers of napkin) which would make them a little thick and prone to wrinkling. I removed one of the plies (you could remove two plies and keep only the layer that has the sheet music printed on it. I tried this and found the napkin to be extremely delicate when gluing to the candle. One ply is possible to work with, just be extra gentle).

Napkin has three plies. Photo shows the back ply being removed to make the napkin thinner.

Now that the napkin is all prepped, cover the battery-operated candle with a layer of Mod Podge (or white glue).

Battery operated candle is being covered with a layer of Mod Podge (sealant glue) using a paintbrush.

Carefully attach the napkin to the candle, patting it gently to adhere it to the candle. If the napkin has any indentations in it, you can carefully smoothen them out by running your finger across them.

Music themed napkin rectangles is placed on the battery operated candle covered in glue.

Once the candle is dry, use a nail file to scrape the excess napkin off. Remember to always move the nail file towards the center of the candle (not away from it!) to keep the napkin from tearing. The napkin will fall off and leave a nice clean finish to the bottom and top of the candle.

A nail file is being scraped against the edge of the battery operated candle to remove the excess napkin from the candle.
Photo show the napkin easily falling off by using the nail file. This method leaves a clean edge along the candle.

Add a layer of Mod Podge over the napkin to protect it. Once it is dry, it will give the candle a slightly waxy look, like a real candle.

A layer of Mod Podge (sealant glue) is place on the candle with the napkin to protect the napkin.

Apply a thick layer of Mod Podge along the outer and inners rims of the candle to make it look like melted wax.

A paintbrush is used to apply a thick layer of Mod Podge (sealant glue) along the outer rim of the candle to imitate melted wax.
A paintbrush is used to apply a thick layer of Mod Podge (sealant glue) along the inner rim of the candle to imitate melted wax.

Pour the glitter into a small bowl and dip the candle with the thick layer of Mod Podge into the bowl to cover the Mod Podge. The “melted wax” will now have a sparkly shine to it.

The candle is dipped into a bowl filled with white glitter. The glitter sticks to the Mod Podge (sealant glue) along the inner and outer rims, making the melted wax sparkle.

Time for the embellishments! Apply a little hot glue to one end the ribbon and attach it to the candle. Measure how long the ribbon should be to wrap completely around the candle and trim it to size. Glue down the rest of the ribbon.

Apply hot glue to the ribbon embellishment.
Wrap the ribbon embellishment around the battery operated candle. Cut the ribbon to size and glue in place.

Cut enough of the twine string to wrap it three times around the candle (leave a little extra on both ends to tie it into a bow!).

Wrap twine around the red ribbon embellishment 3 times.

Thread the keyboard charm onto the twine string and tie a bow.

Thread the keyboard charm through the twine and tie the twin in a bow.

Depending on the size of the charm (mine was rather large), add a little bit of hot glue to help hold it in place.

Apply hot glue to the back of the keyboard charm to help hold it in place.

Hot glue the holly leaves to the candle. I placed mine right above the twine bow.

Holly leaf sequins are hot glued to the candle as additional embellishments.

Final touch! Hot glue the jingle bell to the candle.

A golden jingle bell is hot glued to the candle and holly leaves as a final embellishment.

And there it is! Have fun experimenting with different embellishments (I used a red and white twine on some candles and replaced the holly leaves for gold glittery leaves on others)… if you teach siblings, it’s always nice to have something a little different so they each have their own special gift. You can even use a larger candle to make a beautiful holiday decoration for your piano (because we teachers deserve pretty things too!).

Finished music note candle craft sitting on a piano keyboard. The candle has red ribbon and twine tied around it as well as a keyboard charm, holly leaves and a jingle bell as embellishments.

They look so pretty together all lit up and ready to head off to my students’ homes!

Several music note candles sitting on a piano keyboard. The candles are lit up. The candles have red ribbon and twine tied around them and have a keyboard charm, holly leaves and a jingle bell as embellishments.

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