50 Birthday Candles
I saw this fun idea on Pinterest while I was planning my husband’s 50th birthday. I went to the dollar store and found candles. At first, I was hoping to find all black or all white, but these are the colors they had. If I had been a little more on the ball I probably would have ordered all black candles from amazon!
At the dollar store, I bought ALL the candles they had. It worked out well, because it kind of looked like a target.
Experimenting with the Candles
Putting the candles together was more challenging than I had anticipated. I wanted to make sure that if they got bumped, they didn’t separate.
First, I tried using tape. . .
It wasn’t very stable and as you can imagine, tape doesn’t stick well to wax!
Next, I tried hot gluing them. . . 
It worked for a little while. They held together and they were stable enough to stand. But, once the glue cooled it wasn’t so great! They easily came apart and the glue came off, leaving a melted place in the candles.
Then, I tried tying them with ribbon and rolling them together. It almost worked! 
But, they weren’t very stable and did a lot of sliding. If the ribbon slides up the candles become too loose, since they are tapered. I was trying to push more candles into the ribbon to help tighten it and didn’t realize the ribbon was sliding up and getting it to come back down was really hard.
I thought it was working and then had all kinds of problems and it wasn’t as stable as I was going for.
This post contains affiliate links. I include these links for your convenience to be able to find similar items to what I am using. I earn a small commission for the referral, but your price remains the same.
Instructions for 50 Candles
Finally, I tried floral tape. If you have never used floral tape before, here is what you need to know: 1. it is sticky but in a waxy kind of way, 2. gently pull the tape as you wrap. This stretches it a little bit and helps it to stick.
First, just wrap one candle with the floral tape. You want it just below where the candles really start to taper. Then, add in 2 or 3. Make sure your candle bottoms are even with one another as you go, so it will sit flat without wobbling. I wrapped the grouping once or twice all the way around and then added more candles in. It is helpful if you have someone who can hold the candles in place while you wrap.
Once I had all the candles wrapped, I took some black ribbon and wrapped it around the floral tape, to cover it up. Securing it with a dab of hot glue. I tied a black bow with the help of some floral wire and secured it to the ribbon.
It does look kind of like a target. In any case, it looks very cool! However, my husband counted and was dismayed that there were only 46 candles! What?!!! Then, I discovered that 2 boxes of candles had been missed! (I was trying to be so careful to not have that happen!) Ugh! There was no way I was going to undo those candles to add the 4 missed! So, we made them into their own grouping with their own pedestal.
I wish all 50 would have been together in the big grouping, but sometimes you gotta work with what you’ve got!
Materials Needed
Floral tape
50 candles
hot glue
black ribbon
Lighting it on fire!
Of course, we are going to light it! Thankfully he has a summer birthday and so we can be outside to do this! Didn’t expect the flame to be so big! This was a highlight of the party!
One Big Breath!
He did it! He blew them all out with one big breath! He was a French horn player and he still has great lung capacity!
1 Comment
Leave your reply.