10 Creative Ways To Repurpose Old Tea Light Holders Around The House

Tea lights, those small round candles often encased in aluminum, are known for their ability to add warmth and coziness to a space, especially in the winter. As they're inexpensive and come in multi-packs, it's uncommon to buy just one tea light. After you've used up all of your tea lights in crafts or simply just burned the wax to completion, now you're left with the aluminum cups. You may be able to easily recycle them in your curbside recycling program, but if you want to create something, you've got the perfect material as your canvas. With a little creativity, you can DIY a plain tea light holder into a decoration or useful item for your home.
Before you work with any projects using tea light holders, make sure that you remove the wax for the best results. One easy way to get rid of all of the excess wax is to set your tea light holder in a cup of hot water so the wax softens, then remove it once you can safely touch the metal. Once you have the remaining wax gathered, avoid putting it in your sink. Instead, you must let it cool and dispose of it in the trash to avoid clogging your pipes. Once you've removed the wax from all of your holders, you can find a new creative use for it with these projects.

Here's a good use for broken crayons rattling around in your child's art supply box. You can cut them into smaller pieces, mixing a few colors together if you like. Once you have your desired mixture, melt the crayons with real candle wax in a saucepan. The real candle wax will help the crayon wax burn brighter. Pour it all into the tea light holder after adding a cotton wick. If you're feeling extra creative, you can melt a few of the crayons and pour them together for a swirling effect. Then display these new colored candles around your home.

Crafting flowers by hand for a decor project or DIY can be tricky, especially if you need to make each individual small petal. Whether you work with air clay, pottery, or another medium, sometimes you might need a good petal cutter. These small tools help you create perfect shapes of leaves and petals so they're identical. Then, you can form a perfect flower for your project. To form this from a tea light holder, start by cutting it into a strip that you can then bend to form heart-shaped petals and other designs. 

A beautiful floating metal flower awaits in the stack of empty tea light cups cluttering your junk drawer. You can cut the metal into a flower shape by slicing slits all around the cup, then rounding the edges to look like petals. Stack two together so that it forms a 3D water lily shape. Now you can place a wick inside a hole in the center of the floating flower to create an elegant accent for a decorative bowl. The bowl should be filled with water and a top layer of oil.

Try repurposing your candle cups as mini planters or to start your seeds indoors. With a little dirt, a few seeds, and some water, any cup, including your tea light holder, is a handy seed starter option. To add decorative elements, try wrapping it with some metallic or patterned washi tape. It's also a nice alternative if you don't have K-cups to repurpose for gardening. Before planting anything, remember to poke small drainage holes in the cup so your plants can sufficiently drain. Place the cups on a tray to catch any drips.

The malleable nature of the aluminum cups make them easy to cut and mold into virtually any shape. A popular motif is florals, particularly because it lets you upcycle several tea cups at once. Once you cut individual petals, you can shape them together on a piece of cardboard or a mat, then frame the finished flower in a shadow box. The metal pairs beautifully with a blue mat, but could work with black, white, or even red as well. You could also try making any other 3D motifs with the aluminum cups. Once finished, hang these framed pieces on your wall.

Repurposing your cardboard boxes after a move along with tea light cups can help you make a unique picture frame with metal floral details. Use a piece of cardboard as the backing, which you can decorate however you'd like. Then, create flowers and leaves from the aluminum cups and use them to decorate the piece. Each cup can make a small flower, or you can make larger ones by arranging the petals in a layering fashion. If you don't want to do a picture frame, you could also string up the flowers on twine or wire for a hanging piece of decor.

Don't throw away or recycle your tea light holder just yet. You can easily use it to hold a tall taper candle and catch wax while it burns, especially if you find yourself rummaging for a candle holder after you get a new set of candles. Use the little tea candle cup to hold your taper candle upright — you may need to secure it to the surface with a thumb tack pushed through the bottom of the aluminum cup. Then, you can place it on a dish or in a bowl surrounded by something that will keep it upright, like sand or pebbles.

Keep the flame burning all year by using a tea light holder as a base for a needle-felted candle. This could be a cute accessory for your craft room or home library. Needle felting is a crafting technique where you use a needle to weave wool fibers together so you can form various designs. By mixing the colors of wool you use, you could make a series of various candles, each with a different style "flame" as quirky decor. Also use felt for the candle "wax" and string for the "wick".

The small, portable nature of the tea light cups makes them handy for organizing paint for your DIY projects without having multiple paint tubes or jars cluttering a workspace. You can dedicate each empty tea light holder to a different color, then arrange them on an old dish you also want to repurpose. Your creativity will save you from having to buy a palette right away, especially just for a quick project, and will also ensure you get a second life out of the aluminum cups.

Do you love incense for the warm, cozy feeling it can create and concentration it's believed to inspire? Reuse your tea light holder as the perfect way to hold an incense cone. You already know it can hold a candle effectively, so why not try it with a cone of incense? Place the cone in the tea light cup, light it, and then enjoy the atmospheric vibes the incense offers anywhere you display it. This might be a good hack for using your incense outside, and it will also make it easier to clean up the resulting ashes.