Create your own shabby chic candle chandeliers for your wedding or other great space.

My fiance and I are getting married October 15th of this year. We met at summer camp six years ago, started dating just over four years ago and as of this spring we are set to be married. Erin is a wonderfully stylish woman and she has a great eye for design (she's a budding photographer and took most of these pictures for me) and I appreciate her love for shabby chic design because it's all stuff I can build and make for her. Our wedding will take place at the camp where we met and then we will have the reception a great venue called Brookside Farms in Louisville Ohio.

Besides being a beautiful venue, they are also exceptionally accomodating with decorations and this led to among other great ideas, a wonderful set of chandeliers made from mason jars, a wagon wheel, barrel hoops, wire and some twine.

Step 1: Forming the Wire Hanger

Safety is a big issue when you have open flames in a huge wooden building, so we decided that making a wire hoop to hang the jars on would be the safest way to go. We tested the first run with taller candles then we plan to use so the flame would get as close to the twine as possible.

The results: we could not get it to burn even after letting it go for 6+ hours.

For this step you will need a coat hanger or other piece of wire as well as a pair of needle-nose and lineman pliers.

•Cut and strighten your coat hangar (don't worry about length--we will trim it later)

•Bend a small hook into one end of the wire

•Bend a loop the diameter of your wire (approximate). The loop should be opposite the hook you just bent when you wrap the wire around the jar's neck (this distance just happened to be the length of the grip on my pliers)

•Bend the wire between the hook and the loop into a 'C' shape

Step 2: Finishing the Hanger

Finishing the hanger:

•Wrap the wire around the jar's neck and bend the end of the wire up through the hook you bent earlier

•Bend the wire that is now sticking straight up into a 'basket handle' shape and trim off the excess wire with your cutters

•Insert the wire end into the small loop and bend the end upwards to lock it on

•Repeat 200+ times.................

Step 3: Hanging the Jars

The finished chadelier will incorporate a center wagonwheel support and 2-4 barrel hoop wingmen to hold the 250 or so jars that will make up the final product. This example uses 36 jars suspended on twine and hanging from a doubled twine rope. The finished product will be suspended from a set of wooden barn pulleys using a 3/8" sisal rope which will allow for lowering and lighting.

Hanging the jars is a simple but tedious process that requires tying quite a few knots. I used simple overhand knots and made sure the ends were cut short so they don't catch fire.

The jars are hung at various heights and it seemed easiest to just start by tying short to long

•Begin by hanging your wagon wheel or barrel hoop from strong rope tied to at least three evenly spaced points and hang it from something sturdy

•Tie your first level of jars and dont spend too much time making everything even

•Move on to tying the next levels and make sure to space the jars out well and don't leave any dangling ends to catch fire later on

--This step can be modified for easier transport to your venue later on by tying hooks to the ends of the twine instead of tying directly to the jar hangers. This way the jars can be stored in boxes until it's time to hang everything.

Step 4: Light Those Candles

Once your chandeliers are hung, go ahead and drop in some long burning tea lights (if you haven't already), light them and enjoy your handiwork.

*note: the picture show votives being used but 6 and 8 hour tea lights are available in bulk from party and restaurant supply places and are much safer because they keep the flame as far from the twine as possible. (I just had a pile of lavender votives a friend had leftover from their wedding that we used for the pictures)

Step 5: The Venue

Brookside Farms (www.morethanjustafarm.com) was a working Dairy farm as of a couple years ago and since has become a very popular place for weddings in Ohio according to TheKnot. The old hay barn has been converted to be a meeting hall and more than half of the 120 acres is manicured lawns and origional buildings

Their website says:
We have transformed a working farm into a beautiful combination of farming and gorgeous venue for weddings/receptions and other special events. The scenic farm includes beautiful landscaping, pastures with black angus, meandering creek, and some wooded areas. There are many sites ideal for a wedding ceremony, such as near the creek, in the barn, in a covered bridge or in a gazebo. The 120 acre farm is a very private and quiet setting and includes the historic barn and farm house. A bon fire is always a unique ending to any ceremony.

The photos below are from a blog I found called: www.radoldblog.com It's been extremely hard to find good photos of the farm and especially the inside of the barn because it's so new. So, I hope it's ok to use these while I wait for the opportunity to take my own.

Step 6: The Finished Product

***Pictures of the wedding are finally back and posted!! It took awhile to get the photos back but they turned out great and the wedding was wonderful.

Pictures of the finished product will be posted a week or so after October 15th on account of the honeymoon. I hope that isn't too upsetting. If it is, I left you some pictures of bassett hounds running to take the edge off. I hope this helps...

**Be sure to subscribe and I will get those pictures up asap