If you have a relatively small decorating budget for an evening party but want to make a big impact, Miss Party has one word for you –candlelight! It’s the single best bang for your decor budget you can get. This is a perfect DIY assembly project, anyone can do it. Only collecting skills are necessary!
To create a magical evening ambience in your party space, envision dozens and dozens of lit candles displayed in a myriad of ways -tea lights, votives, pillar candles, tapers, and candlelit lanterns. The candles are all white; twinkling, dancing flames glow here and there throughout your party, warming up the shadows of the darkness.
With lanterns outdoors, create groupings of 3 floor-size lanterns of various sizes to have a larger impact in an outdoor party space. Table-sized lanterns can be randomly positioned on a rock wall or along a pathway, on side tables or a coffee table. On indoor side tables, place a lantern in a grouping with other smaller pillar and votive candleholders. Extra large, floor-size lanterns look beautiful indoors, too, just take care they’re not placed where anyone might accidently knock one over. You might also place one or more lanterns at the exterior of your front door, along a walkway or even along the driveway to welcome guests. Also, consider placing lanterns on a backyard deck that may be visible from your indoor party space.
Hanging tea light candleholders are beautiful, as the images above reflect. Also, as you’ll see in one of the pictures, tea lights and votive candles in clear glass holders are perfect spots of light for the dining table, side tables, windowsills, a rock wall or anywhere in the party space. Larger pillar-sized candleholders are also effective for providing greater impact on a table and a larger flame, hence more practical light, as does a beautiful candelabra. Almost all tabletop-sized candleholders work just as well indoors as outdoors.
The single, unifying element is to use only one color of candle, white being the easiest color to find in a variety of sizes. Using only white candles, for example, in all your candleholders and lanterns, no matter the size or type, brings harmony to an otherwise eclectic mix. Collect various sizes of candleholders and lanterns and an eclectic mix of styles, as naturally occurs when things are acquired over time. While most of the smaller candles will only last for the duration of your party, the larger candles will last a good deal longer and, of course, the holders and lanterns are reusable indefinitely.
Obviously, this isn’t a new idea, humans have been lighting the darkness with candles for hundreds and hundreds of years out of necessity. The crafty hostesses out there are probably poo-pooing the DIY aspect of this project, but hang on there a moment, what Miss Party is bringing to the table here is how to intentionally make or create AMBIENCE. A magical AMBIENCE doesn’t come from nowhere, it must be created.
Let there be light!
Candlelight really does create instant atmosphere. Around my house we still have little ones, so we tend to use the battery operated ones. I like the hanging sconce idea.