I’d seen this image of a wood tea light house on Pinterest:
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and I wanted one.
Nope, I NEEDED one!
Isn’t it just the cutest little thing you’ve ever seen?
Did I mention I have a new scroll saw that was itching to create?
Did you know scroll saws take practice to master?
Yup, thought if I drilled small holes in the corner of each window, I’d be able to scroll away and make a perfect wood tea light house. I think my results speak to my technique; a little rough. We’ll call this guy “rustic – and pretend that it is intentional.
But what if you don’t have a scroll saw and/or aren’t so keen on the rustic edges?
Sharp corners could me made by crossing boards… but what boards are small enough to work in a tea light house?
Let’s give paint sticks a whirl…
I cut a notch at every inch mark along a few paint sticks – be careful! – while the table saw should only be at a height to cut halfway through the paint sticks, fingers 1″ from any blade are fair game for amputation. Once I had my sticks ‘notched’, I just crossed one over the other and tapped into place.
From there you’ll need to create your house frame to hold this window pane section. I cut two sides and a bottom on the mitre saw and then a triangle for the roof.
Glue into place with wood glue and use a bit of wood filler to fill in any gaps. Don’t worry if your paint stirrers aren’t the same depth as your house – we’ll sand it down once the glue and wood filler is dry.
Much better right?
This is looking promising, and the windows have nice square corners!
I built the candle box behind the house and stained the entire thing (inside and out) in dark walnut.
My larger wood tea light house was sized to hold a 3-wick candle – so the sides are roughly 5″ tall by 5″ wide. (but then, that really isn’t a tea light house is it?)
Here are the measurements for the little guy:
You can see that both tea light houses have enough room between the wood and candle so as not to burn.
Not quite as cute as the inspiration piece – but not a terrible result either.
Wouldn’t these be pretty if they were made almost entirely of paint stir sticks – on all four sides? That would have definitely been on my building list if I hadn’t already created three when all I wanted was one. lol
Go putter – you never know what you’ll come up with!
Have a great one!
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