Tea Light Holders- HELP!

undercover_angel

Hi Everyone!

I am having a nightmare with trying to make some tea light holders, I work in a nursery and the children are all (hopefully) going to make tea light holders and paint them to sell at our Christmas Fayre.

Now, I initially thought we can use salt dough so I used a cutter to make a circle and pressed the tea light into the centre to make the hole that it will eventually sit in. This was on Friday. I tried baking one, however the "hole" (where the tea light will sit) closed up and became too small. I also tried leaving one to air dry but it just isn't drying properly and where it is drying, it is cracking! Arghh!

Does anyone have any other ideas of how to make tea light holders as the salt dough just isn't working. If not can anybody think of anything else the children could make so sell at our fair instead? (We are already doing Tree Decorations and Calendars so can't make those, our manager likes us to make 3 different things)

Thanks

greenpixey

Sorry can't really help with the dough....Any chance you got an excess of glass jars that the children could paint and put the tea lights inside instead?

undercover_angel

Thanks for the idea but no, we don't have many glass jars at all and it's a bit late to start collecting them now as the fair is in 2.5weeks.

Shevs

Could you not make them out of papemache (sp) get the teachers to make them over a mold of the shape you want then when they are dry give them to the children to decorate? hth x

lightisfading

undercover_angel wrote: »

Now, I initially thought we can use salt dough so I used a cutter to make a circle and pressed the tea light into the centre to make the hole that it will eventually sit in. This was on Friday. I tried baking one, however the "hole" (where the tea light will sit) closed up and became too small. I also tried leaving one to air dry but it just isn't drying properly and where it is drying, it is cracking! Arghh!

This is just an idea, i've no idea if /how well it would work, but could you take the candle part of the tealight out of its metal 'shell' and leave the shell part in while it bakes to keep the hole open?

rosekitten

another idea get some tomatoe
purree tins these are small
cut a circle of dough 4 or five
inches in diameter.place over the
tin fold down the sides,you get kind
of a ripple effect bake like this upside
down,this will give you dishes,that will
take a tealight or bigger candles.

or cut a circle 2.5 inches diameter .
roll some dough into a long sausage shape
place this round the edge then bake.

katiecoodle

what about using the modelling clay which sets as it dries? You'll need an adult to mould them but the kids could decorate them.

rosekitten

this is a simple idea to make a letter holder,
lottery ticket holder or shopping coupon
holder.simple to make,cheap and handy
plus you can paint them stick pictures on them
decorate in a lot of easy ways

and lets face it what mum or dad is not
going to buy their childs letter/coupon
holder on the day.


If you get two paper plates/plain white
ones from the £ or cheap shop will be fine

---

3 plates make two holders,word of warning
polystyrene plates wont work for this.they
fall apart too easy the paper ones last for
ages

---

cut one paper plate in half

decorate the back of the half paper plate

with the other paper plate
decorate the top half on the front
of the plate

get a punch hole or something
pointy ans make a hole in the
top of the full plate thread ribbon
or string through it and knot it so you
have a loop.

place the half paper plate on top of
the full plate and glue the edges together
or staple them together.

.

KittyKate

How about using a different kind of dough? There's an air dry one you can buy fairly cheaply from ELC which is fairly cheap and doesn't seem to shrink.

thevicster

could you maybe buy some of the 24p glass holders in asda? then get the kids to decorate them?

Gingernutmeg

What's your salt dough recipe? I've never had a problem with shrinking so maybe if you try a different recipe you'd be ok?

Or, maybe you could make them in two bits - you know how you've got a bit with a hole in it, are you using something like a biscuit cutter with a smaller one for tea light hole? If you are, you could cut out a solid 'bottom' and then stick the piece with a hole in it on top (think of a jammy dodger lol). That way the bottom piece would probably stop the top piece from shrinking, IYSWIM. Might be worth a go.