Who WOOD Have Thought?

Dear Pottery Barn,

I love you. I really do. Your suburban chic style with a hint of rustic charm gets me every time. And you know how to dress a table like nobody’s business. Between your vintage looking silver, delicious linens, and the monogrammed bedding I find it hard to find fault with you. Until today.

Pottery Barn, I have a bone to pick with you. What kind of a fool do you take me for? While I love everything about the look of these Birch Pillar Candles I cannot—nay WILL not pay $15-$69(!) for one. Do you know what I could do with $15-$69? A lot—that’s what.

Therefore, for the time being, I feel like its best if we part ways. I’ll still be there to gaze longingly at your glossy pages of inspiration. But in the meantime, I’ll take it from here.

XOXO,

Me

This project is so simple you won’t believe it. When I saw these candles in the catalog I was instantly reminded of some paper I had seen in the scrapbook paper section of Michael’s awhile ago. It looks and feels like wood, buts it’s actually a thin sheet of paper. I picked some up on my next trip to the store, picked up a couple white pillar candles at Wal-Mart, and set to work.

All you have to do here is cut the wood paper to size and hot glue it on. I found it worked best if I put a line of glue on the paper and a line of glue on the actual candle. With a little bit of ribbon to finish it off, a dollar tree platter and some clearance pine cone filler from Michael’s I have a Pottery Barn-esque  centerpiece that I put together for pennies.

They certainly aren't perfect, and it if you get really close, you can tell they are amateur crafter-made and not Pottery Barn Perfect. But for the price? I'll take 'em!

Who wood have thought?

Here’s the rundown:

Total Time Spent: About 5 minutes per candle. Maybe 20 minutes total from start to the pulled-together centerpiece finish.

Total Cost: The tall candles were $2.88/each and the smaller one was $1.88. I used two pieces of wood paper which cost $2.50 a piece. I already had the other supplies (ribbon, platter, pine cone) on hand—so FREE! Total for everything: $13 which is still less than the smallest, least expensive of the Pottery Barn version.

Would we do this again? Of course we WOOD!

Credit: For once—me! I saw these in the catalog and came up with the idea for the knock-off all on my own! What is this Copy Cat world coming to?!

Linking UP!