DIY Painted Stripe Candlesticks // With 3M DIY

My latest DIY tale starts with a pair of plain, unassuming wooden candlesticks, snagged from the craft store for less than $5 apiece. The only drawback of this too-good-to-be-true deal? The wooden finish was definitely a bit blasé.

Although the cat’s already out of the bag, I’ll state the obvious and say that my ultimate solution was to coat my bare bones candlesticks with paint—and with the help of some prep tools and 3M™ Safety Products care of  3M DIY! Want to create your own?

Before I could get to the “good” part, I needed to take care of a little bit of prep work first. This involved grabbing a 3M™ Advanced Abrasives Sanding Sponge and, after donning my clear 3M™ Safety Glasses for extra protection, I got to work roughing up the surface of my candlesticks.

With that step finished and my candlesticks wiped down with a clean cloth, I noticed that I had one more thing to take care of before breaking out the paint. My particular candlesticks sport pretty brass cups on top for the candles to nestle into. I didn’t want these to be painted along with the rest of the base, so I needed to mask them off using tape.

To cover the metal, I ripped off two pieces of 3M™ Safe Release™ Painter’s Tape Advanced+ Multi Surface and then pressed them on top of each brass cup, using my fingernail to stick them tightly to the rims. Then I carefully sliced along the edges with an X-acto® knife, which created my perfectly sized circles of masking tape.

Time for paint! Using a roll of Scotch® Tough Duct Tape, I attached a piece of drop cloth canvas to the side of our garage door. Then I laid my masked candlesticks on the canvas and sprayed them with a few thin and even coats of white spray paint. After letting them dry for an hour, I gently brought them inside to cure for an additional 24 hours.

For the final step, I laid out three different colors of crafter’s acrylic paint and some more 3M™ Safe Release™ Painter’s Tape, this time a roll of Delicate Surface so that my now delicate painted candlesticks wouldn’t get damaged. I taped off two small sections of the candlesticks’ beveled base and painted each out in one of three colors—dark teal for the bottoms of both, and lighter green and mint for the top details.

After painting on about three coats of each color using a small detail paint brush, I immediately removed the tape and set the finished candlesticks aside to dry for two hours. And with that, I was done! The pair has already made a heavy rotation through our summertime dinners, both inside and out. This simple do-it-yourself craft is yet another testament to the true power of paint, doncha think??

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