With so many holidays approaching, no doubt you have begun to think about decorations. My favorite part of Thanksgiving is dressing up the table. Here is a simple and beautiful way to steampunk your dinner table. Here’s what you’ll need:
~The light bulbs & gears can be substituted for other various machine parts that you desire. It is best to use a majority of clear items so that the flame will shine through them. Possible substitutes include: radio or vaccum tubes, broken glass or even bits of ornaments that have broken, & washers.
Making this candle holder is easy, finding your materials will take longer than assembly (which is great, because if you’re entertaining last minute this is a quick table fix!). Here’s what you do:
1) Place the tea candle inside the smaller candle holder. Then place the small candle holder inside of the larger one.
2) Arrange your light bulbs & gears (or what have you) and fill in the space surrounding the small candle holder. Be sure not to fill the (larger) candle holder over the height of the small candle holder.
3) Once your items are arranged, light your tea candle and enjoy its illumination!
bohemianromance 
Excellent idea!! Would it work with beads though? Wait, stupid question, yes of course it’d work… 😜
Absolutely it would! I like to add different things, like beads, sequins, and photos for different holidays & seasons too.
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I would love to make these for my wedding, I am having a really hard time finding the light bulbs. I need quite a bit, I would like to make two of these for each table.
Sasha,
They are really wonderful for table accents. The first place I’d suggest looking for light bulbs is your local flea market, followed by estate sales & garage sales (for the latter 2, focus mainly on the garage area that’s where you’ll find a lot of old bulbs). Another place you can sometimes find them is at automotive shops–a lot of really great light bulbs–especially tiny ones are automotive lights. Often, they just throw them out & they may even give them to you for free. The last place you can look, if you’re really having a hard time & don’t mind purchasing them are: your local home improvement store (look in the hardware section under the “science experiments” section–Lowes has one, I am not sure about other hardware stores) and also Etsy sellers specifically selling “steampunk supplies.” This last option is not ideal, because you’ll often pay a lot more for your light bulbs.
What size large and small candle holders did you use?
Lauren, all different sizes. Small bicycle gears fit standard sized candle holders that you can purchase (approx. 2-3 inches in diameter).