DIY Christmas Candles: 3 Easy Decorations!

Make beautiful Christmas candles & decorations with aromatic cedar, bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, etc. Easy farmhouse decor, crafts, and great gift ideas! 

No need to buy special Christmas candles to decorate your home! You can transform plain white pillar candles easily in just 10-20 minutes, using things you already have!

Make beautiful Christmas candles & decorations with aromatic cedar, bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, etc. Easy farmhouse décor, crafts, and great gift ideas!

VERY IMPORTANT: we used wide candles that will only burn in the center in the photos. However, these decorated candles are FOR DECORATIONS ONLY. DO NOT burn these candles, and NEVER BURN ANY CANDLES UNATTENDED due to fire hazard! You can also decorate battery operated LED candles.

Now collect some conifer clippings from your garden, some cinnamon sticks from your kitchen, let’s make some great smelling Christmas candles for festive decorations and easy gifts!

Make it portable

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Materials & tools to make Christmas candles:

DIY Christmas candles & decorations with aromatic cedar, bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, etc.
transform thrift store candles into farmhouse decorations for Christmas

Step 1: gather natural materials to decorate your Christmas candles 

Choose leaves and clippings that are thick, stiff and long lasting. 

cut evergreen cedar clippings to decorate candles

I love cedar branches because they smell amazing and can stay green for weeks after being cut. Make the cedar clippings a little shorter than the height of the candle.

Of course everyone loves candles with cinnamon sticks! Bay leaves are great choices too because of their fragrance and long lasting green color.

gather natural materials to decorate your Christmas candles

Now it’s beginning to smell a lot like Christmas! 🙂

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DIY photo candles with packing tape image transfer

Step 2: how to decorate Christmas candles with cedar tree clippings 

making candle decorations

Helpful hack: we will be using a couple of rubber bands to hold everything together, and remove them after we tie the twine around.

The rubber bands should be tight on the candle with some extra room to stretch further.

Take a cedar clipping and tuck it between the candle surface and the rubber band

Take a cedar clipping and tuck it between the candle surface and the rubber band. Repeat with a few more clippings to cover around the candle. 

Wrap hemp twine tightly around the candle and cedar clippings.

Wrap hemp twine tightly around the candle and cedar clippings. I wrapped the twine close to the bottom of the candle. 

 beautiful DIY cedar candle for Christmas decorations

Tie a knot and trim off the excess twine. Remove the rubber bands. Now we have a beautiful cedar candle for our Christmas decorations. How easy is that?!

DIY beautiful Christmas candles & decorations with aromatic cedar, bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, etc. Easy farmhouse décor, crafts, and great gift ideas!

The bay leaf candle above is made in exactly the same way. You can also layer different decorative materials on the candles which we will see in the next step.

You may also love: Easy DIY frosted mason jar candles.

Easy DIY frosted mason jar candles.
Easy DIY frosted mason jar candles.

Step 3: make candle decorations with cinnamon sticks and bay leaves 

make candle decorations with cinnamon sticks

We will be using a variation of the technique from Step 2. 

make farmhouse candle decorations and gifts with bay leaves and cinnamon sticks

First arrange a circle of bay leaves around the candle using rubber bands to hold them in place.

Overlap the leaves on candle

Overlap the leaves about 1/2″ where they meet.

Use two different rubber bands to hold the cinnamon sticks as you add them to where the leaves overlap.

make cinnamon sticks decorated candle

If the leaves shift a little, you can adjust them at the end.

Once everything is in place, tie two rows of hemp twine tightly around the cinnamon sticks and candle , one row towards the top and one row towards the bottom.

how to decorate candles with cinnamon sticks

Remove the rubber bands. You can tie more twine around if you want everything to be a little tighter.

Christmas candle decorations with cinnamon sticks

Don’t you think these decorated candles would make great farmhouse decor and gifts?!

If you want to give these candles as gifts, put them in these clear cello bags with twist ties!

farmhouse Christmas candles & decorations with aromatic cedar,

VERY IMPORTANT: we used wide candles that will only burn in the center in the photos. However, these decorated candles are FOR DECORATIONS ONLY. DO NOT burn these candles, and NEVER BURN ANY CANDLES UNATTENDED due to fire hazard! You can also decorate battery operated flickering LED candles.

10 Comments

    • hi Debbie! these 3″ candles with only one wick will burn in the center one inch area and form a hollow cone, so the flame is kept away from the leaves. if the candles are smaller, i would just use them for decorations and remove the leaves etc when i burn them. 🙂

      • You really should have emphasized in ALL CAPS that, as beautiful as these are, they should not be lit. Our neighbors nearly had their house burn down because a decorated candle in the powder room was forgotten, on Christmas Day, and allowed to burn down. The risk of fire is real, it happens in spite of best intentions. Just because you used a candle that will only burn in the center doesn’t mean all your followers will do so. They’re beautiful, but just for show. Or maybe decorate a battery operated candle.

  1. I’ve made these before; they are so simple but look so impressive when done! When I want to “refresh” the cinnamon smell, I scratch the sticks with a fingernail or a nail file!

    • you said it better than i could Kathy! 🙂 i am going to add your tips about the cinnamon in this post! thank you as always, and happy November!!

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