Fresh Apple Tea Lights – An apple candle holder tutorial

Ah, Halloween is over, and I sure enjoyed all of the spooky and festive posts.  I’m not ready to let go of the fall theme just quite yet though!  These fresh apple tea lights are such a gorgeous idea to decorate a fall or thanksgiving table.  And they are so simple to make!

Really all you need are a few fresh apples and a few tea lights.  I used green apples (Granny Smith), but you could just as easily use red.  The firmer the apple the better, or you might have trouble cutting out the middle.  Just try to find a few that are similar shapes and sizes.

Place the tea light upside down on the top of the apple and trace the circle with a pen.  This doesn’t necessarily have to be centered over the stem.  Try to mark out the circle so that when the apple sits naturally on a flat surface that the candle will be centered at the top.

You can kind of see in the photo below how the stem on my apple is slightly off to the side of the circle so that the tea light would sit in the proper position:

Use a sharp knife to cut around the circle.  I’m no expert, but I found it easier to start by making a shallow cut first (about 1/4″), and then I went deeper and at an angle and kind of pried off the top.

Not exactly perfection or anything , but no one is going to see the inside of the apple.  The edge of the circle cut is really all that matters.

Use a spoon to scrape out the apple, going deep enough to fit the tea light inside:

This next part is important!  Brush some lemon juice on the apple to help prevent it from going brown.  I brushed a very generous amount of lemon juice on all exposed apple flesh (especially the edges), and my apple candles lasted exactly one week on my kitchen table before I threw them away.

Slide in the tea light:

And voila!  You have a fresh apple candle holder made with tea lights!

These are so pretty and so festive for any fall party, especially Thanksgiving!  As for the smell?  Don’t get your hopes up… there isn’t really anything in here to bring about a strong smell.  So if you want fresh apple candles that actually smell like apple, I’m afraid you’ll have to buy apple scented tea lights.

These would look so pretty as a centerpiece, or just as table decorations.   You could even put one at each place setting.  Apparently they even float!  (…although I’m not sure I’d trust that the apples wouldn’t just flip over the wrong way in the water… I’d have to test it.)  Imagine how pretty a bunch of these floating in a beautiful bowl of water would look?

Okay, I am new to this, and I thought this was a pretty cute idea, but people have really thought of everything!!  Apparently you can actually buy an Apple Candle Carver that automatically carves out the perfect size of apple flesh to fit your tea light into!  I can’t believe that actually exists!  Call, me old fashioned, but I really didn’t mind carving out the apple myself.  But I suppose if I ever had to make 50 of them I might be more inclined to get the apple tea light holder carving gadget!

Source : onelittleproject.com
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