Light the Way With Holiday Candle Decorations

A 5-gallon utility bucket, water, and a floating candle (or outdoor LED lights) are all you need—plus a push from a winter freeze—to create beautiful icy luminarias. See our step-by-step instructions for this and other luminaria projects.

Light up family dinners or holiday parties with this pretty candle. Place greenery at the bottom of a glass jar; fill jar about two-thirds full of water. Add cranberries and a floating candle.

Related: Holiday Decorating With Cranberries

Simple white pillars of varying heights make an impressive and inexpensive display. Use what you already have at home along with some new ones. Ribbon scraps pinned around a few candles will add festive flair.

Related: Throw a Holiday Party on a Budget

Give plain red pillar candles an extra color punch with candy-cane sticks or polka-dot ribbon. Use glue or heavy-duty double-stick tape to attach candy canes to the candle.

Illuminate your table with holiday warmth. Group coordinating glass pieces you already own—think votives, vases, flutes and tumblers—then pop in candles or tea lights.

Related: Easy Holiday Decorating With Glass

Press-on gems dress up glass cup candles for the season. Place the gems in rows for a unified look or vary the placement for a more casual appearance.

Encircle glass hurricanes with carnation "wreaths." Create the wreaths with florist foam wreath bases, scarlet carnations and small ball ornaments.

Start with cylinders of varying heights. Place red flowers, such as roses and amaryllises, and greenery in a metal flower frog. Attach the frog inside the cylinder using double-sided florist's tape. Cover the flowers with water, float cranberries on top and place a floating candle amid the berries. Change water daily. The piece should last up to seven days.

Place pillar candles, evergreen branches, pinecones and clementines on a beveled-edge mirror for a nature-inspired tabletop arrangement. Don't like orange? Bring in green pears or red apples for traditional holiday color.

Related: Festive Holiday Tables

Try a layered look for luminarias. Be sure the materials you choose cannot catch fire if candle wax or flames touch them, or use battery-powered candles for safety. To make our luminarias in glass vases, place fat white candles on top of half of the river rocks you wish to use. Continue placing black rocks inside to anchor the candle. Magnolia leaves and a sprinkling of red winterberries complete the look. Don't use holly; in cold weather, it turns black.

Give bargain glass vases the lustrous look of mercury glass with a spray-on mirror finish. We used Krylon's Looking Glass Mirror-Like Paint. Lightly spray water inside clean vases, then spray the same area with mirror finish. (Paint should run, creating an aged, crackled effect.) Turn upside down to dry. For a heavier finish, repeat. Remember, don't leave lit candles unattended.