4th of July Centerpiece

Our family loves to eat outside during the summer. We spend pretty much every evening out on our deck enjoying the sunset, listening to children play and eating yummy BBQ. When I think of it, I also enjoy having a candle out on our table. Most of the time I just pop a votive candle in an empty mason jar and place it on our table. With the 4th of July approaching, I thought it would be fun to give my outdoor candle centerpieces an upgrade.

First, find some mason jars. I have plenty of jars at home. We use mason jars to decorate with, serve dessert in or at times even drink out of. So, I just opened my cupboard and pulled out a few.

Along with the traditional mason jar, I love the jam style mason jar. Right now all mason jars are on sale at Jo Ann's. They are only a couple of dollars (or less) so pick up a few!

Also, at Jo Ann's, all their patriotic decorations are 70 percent off! I found these cute patriotic tealight candles for only $2!

I also picked up a few items to decorate my jars. I bought washi tape and ribbon. Jo Ann's also has patriotic ribbon right now in their dollar section.

Now, time to decorate. For the jam jars, I tied ribbon around the top and put one of the  4th of July tealights in each. I love placing the jars in clusters. You could have a series of clusters down the middle of your table.

With the larger mason jars, I used washi tape to decorate. I of course used red, white and blue tape. I decorated each jar with a different tape pattern. On a side note, washi tape is so easy to peel off. You can use the same jars over and over again by just replacing the washi tape with new washi tape. Washi tape comes in so many different colors and patterns. The jars could really be used for every holiday.

To help anchor the votive candles, I placed sugar in each jar. The white sugar played right along with the red, white and blue theme. I put a different amount of sugar in each jar so the candles were at varying heights. My mom always taught me to keep things in odd numbers and at varying heights when decorating. I have these rules ingrained in me!

Here are the candles on our deck table. I love how they turned out and can't wait to use them for the 4th of July and throughout the summer. In fact, we have already used them! The jam jars are on a side table on our deck. Such a simple centerpiece, but so so delightful!