Today begins a series of blog posts all about Christmas.  I’m getting ready for the holidays by making cards, decorating, making gifts, cooking yummy appetizers and desserts and prepping to capture the memories through pictures and journaling.

I’m starting today with decorating my house for Christmas.  I haven’t done this in a few years {you can read about why here} and have been going through my existing decorations and looking for ways to update things a bit.  I found this candle holder at Momtastic and thought it would be perfect along with a couple more on my mantel.  When we were first married my mom gave me the Precious Moments Nativity set for my birthday and I always display it on our mantel.  I surround it with candles and I thought this candle holder would look nice.

It was crazy easy to do.  First I took a trip down to my local dollar store and bought a tapered candle holder and a bowl with straight sides.  They had the mini-gold fish bowls, but I liked the one you see in the picture.  The tutorial suggested glass or bead glue and I fished out my tube of E-6000 adhesive.  This stuff will stick to anything!  If you decide to use it make sure you’re in a ventilated area; it packs a punch.

I removed all the stickers and washed and dried the glassware.  I made sure to have a pile of qtips available and a bottle of nail polish remover.  The nail polish remover does a really good job of removing any accidental glue drips.  The nice thing about the E-6000 glue is that it doesn’t dry immediately so you have time to position the candle stick holder on the base of the bowl to make sure it’s centered.  You could measure, but I just eyeballed it.  After I adhered the candle stick, I went around the base with a qtip and removed any of the glue that squished out.  That left a residue which I then removed with a qtip dipped in nail polish remover.  It needs to sit overnight to dry, but will be raring to go in the morning.

I attached a ribbon around the base of the bowl which can be easily removed and replaced for other seasonal celebrations.  I really like this project and want to make a bunch, but need to make sure I have a good reason for all of them.  There’s a great temptation because they’re so inexpensive ($2) to make a bazillion, but unless you have a reason, you really only need a couple :-). 

“You could make one to hold our treats.  That’s a really good reason.”