Granny Chic Tea-light Holders

Reading back through my recent posts, you'd be forgiven for thinking that I never left the house. There is a definite making and baking feel to this space lately, and that's just fine. But I have been outside, I promise, it's just that family days out are less frequent at this time of year. John works every weekend during December and so it's often just the kids and I. We potter and play, we visit the park, we go to birthday parties (Bella has three this week!) During the week we do the endless to-ing and fro-ing to school and nursery and back, we see friends. After school I provide a taxi service to and from Rainbows, cheerleaders, play dates... It's busy. The last family "outing" we tried to have was a total disaster. We thought we'd go into Leeds a couple of weeks ago on a spontaneous trip to the German Christmas Market. It poured with rain and was very cold. We did not have hats or umbrellas. We had no cash with us. While John was queuing at the cash point Angus had a massive tantrum because he wanted to go on a fair ground ride. I let him get on and suddenly, after a couple of minutes, he started to scream. I had to stand and watch him go round and round, sobbing, until the ride stopped. When I lifted him off, I saw that he'd wet himself (this was why he was crying - he was so excited by the ride he forgot to tell me he needed a wee) and he proceeded to wee all over me too. We didn't have spare clothes for him - we were being spontaneous! So we went home, got changed, then went out for fish and chips.

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Anyway, back to safer territory. Do you like a crafting project that can be done in ten minutes? And which only requires a handful of things lying about the house? And one that costs nothing? Yay, me too! I give you my pretty lace tea-light jam jars.

I'll be honest, I have mixed feelings about the whole granny chic look. Sometimes I think it's genius but other times it looks like the home of a crazy person who never threw anything away. John detests this sort of decorating so he is tolerating these tea-light holders since it's Christmas. But I LOVE them. My mother-in-law, Jean, gave me this length of lace when we last stayed with them. She bought it years and years ago from travelers who were selling things door to door, and she never knew what to use it for. I am happy to have found a use for it and there is still absolutely metres of it left. The lace is dreamy and delicate - pure white in daylight, opal and glowing in candlelight. 

You will need:

• Jam jars.
• Lace trim, ideally wide enough to cover the jars (or paper doilies would work too).
• PVA glue.
• An old paintbrush.

To make:

• Paint the outside of the jam jar with glue - you want a thin, even coating.
• Cut a piece of lace long enough to go around the circumference of your jam jar and place it around the jar over the glue.
• Trim the lace so that there is not much overlap.
• Paint over the place where the two edges meet with more glue so that any loose ends stay stuck down.

See, easy! Then simply wait for it to dry and put your tea-light inside. The base of my jam jars was slightly raised and curved so I used a small piece of blu-tack to keep the tea-light in place.

Angus made one too with scraps of lace:

Gorgeous, no?