Farmhouse Candle Sticks

Last year while shopping thrift sales with my mom, I found these old candle sticks. I loved the shape of them and since they were only 50 cents I knew I had to have them.

They were pretty dirty like they were kept in a dusty place, but luckily there was no candle wax stuck to them anywhere. I just cleaned them up with a vinegar and water solution and they look like new!

While the candle sticks were drying, I made some chalk paint using white craft paint and baking soda. (You can see the recipe and my thoughts on it here.)

I gave the candle sticks 2 coats of paint. The picture shown is after one coat.

After I painted the first coat I thought they needed another coat to look better. I used a sponge brush to paint with and you can see all the marks from the brush.

I set them aside to completely dry.

I wanted to use a larger candle than taper candles for my candle sticks. To be able to set the candles on top, I needed a wider piece. I decided to use some mason jar lids that I had taking up space in my kitchen drawer.

I used the chalk paint to paint the lids as well. This was a huge pain because the paint kept coming off and took forever to dry. I almost gave up and spray painted them, but I really wanted this entire project to be made with the homemade chalk paint. So I stuck with it.

After the candle sticks and the mason jar lids were completely dry, I attached the lids to the top of the candle sticks using hot glue.

Once the glue was dry, I lightly sanded random spots along the lids and candle sticks with sandpaper.

While I'm not completely thrilled with the chalk paint recipe, I do love how these candle sticks turned out. In the end making the chalk paint myself saved a lot of money and my project looked very high end.