With a Dash of Color: leaf votive holders

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Fall Luminaries

Fall is my favorite season! The crisp autumn air, the vibrant colors all around and the bountiful harvest make it a wonderful time of the year. This is the best time to celebrate mother nature's beauty! The bright blue skies, the colorful leaves, and the vivid changes all around is simply breathtaking:

To me it is also the unofficial start of the holiday season, with Halloween and Thanksgiving just round the corner. It is the season for crafting, baking and feasting.

I am loving these paper bag luminaries:

No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace

As I have seen in one autumnal face.~ John Donne

Crafted from paper bags with a silhouette image from our favorite "Fairy"... these luminaries were so much fun to make. However, I will never leave these paper luminaries unattended with the candles burning inside. Using battery operated tea-lights instead is a better and safer option especially when used indoors.

Click HERE for the silhouette image:

I saved the image and did some editing in Microsoft Word to adjust the size of the image to fit the paper bag.

Next, I glued the image with Elmer's Glue to the inside center of the paper bag:

Made a few holes at the top with my handy-dandy hole puncher, weaved some black check ribbon, poured some sand into the paper bags to weigh them down and placed my votive holders inside:

They were easy, inexpensive, and so much fun! For now, they look beautiful on my dining room window seat. But I am thinking other possibilities... maybe a group of them lining my driveway for Halloween or as a centerpiece for my dining table with different colored chiffon ribbons.....hmmm....endless possibilities:

I love silhouette images and working with them. So my thanks to Karen, my fairy muse for making it so easy to find these elegant images:

"The falling leaves drift by my window
The falling leaves of red and gold......the days grow long and soon I'll hear old winter's song.... When autumn leaves start to fall..."

I wrapped a pair of silk autumn leaves around each votive holder and tied it with raffia:

Fall Vignette in the day:

Vignette at Dusk:

Vignette at night:

"Every season hath its pleasures; Spring may boast her flowery prime, Yet the vineyard's ruby treasures brighten Autumn's sob'rer time" ~Thomas Moore

The ambiance and mood created by these leaf-wrapped votive candles is so enchanting:

Happy Autumn everyone! I hope you liked peeking at my fall luminaries.Thanks for stopping by and for your sweet comments. Your loving thoughts always make me smile. Please, stop by and visit the links below as I party with these wonderfully creative ladies: