In my ongoing quest to justify my thrift store and yard sale addiction, I decided to embark on a series of ways to use one of the most ubiquitous items found in those arenas – mismatched wine glasses.
The idea of wine glass candle shades was introduced to me by my producer, Malinda, and I knew I just had to run with it. And they turned out just as cute as I’d imagined. It’s important to note that for safety reasons you must use the battery operated tealights. I admit, if given the choice, I’d choose a real candle over a battery operated one any day. But there are many occasions where battery operated candles make more sense; if you have kids or pets that tend to knock candles over, if you want the ambiance but not the residual heat real candles produce, or if you’re afraid you might fall asleep without blowing out a real flame.
These shade work best with vellum paper. Its transparent quality creates a lovely soft glow. Most craft stores that have a scrapbook paper section carry different varieties of vellum paper. You can fit one of these downloadable templates on an 8 ½ x 11 piece of paper, or two on a 12 x 12 piece of paper.
I recommend getting narrow-mouthed glasses, like white wine glasses or champagne flutes. You can use red wine glasses, but since the mouths of red wine glasses are larger, you’ll have to enlarge the template.
Make sure the bottom of the glass is wide enough to accommodate a battery-operated tealight. Some of the very angular champagne flutes wouldn’t do well for this project.
The lanterns look pretty when they’re plain. But I prefer dressing them up a bit.
Using Sharpies, or other bright-colored, opaque markers, draw the design of your choice on your vellum.
Fold the template, overlapping by about a quarter of an inch. Test-fit it over your wine glass to make sure it sits the way you want, and then adjust the overlap from there. Using clear tape, tape the shade in the shape you want.
All that’s left to do is place the battery operated tealights in your wine glasses, cover the glasses with their pretty shades, dim the lights, and enjoy the glow.
