Leaf Votive Holder DIY

Originally, I wrapped some extra lace around my mason jars as votive holders to go along with my Sleepy Hollow-esque theme for Halloween this year. They were super easy, but not exactly what I was hoping they'd look like (in hindsight, I think I wanted more of a circular doily-type look). Then yesterday, my sister e-mailed me an idea about tying leaves to the mason jars instead. Well, here in Southern California, we don't really have a plethora of fall-colored leaves laying around on the ground. So I went to Michael's (got a few other tidbits) and picked up a $4 centerpiece that I could cut up for my votive-holder redo.

This is what I started with:

Two mason jars (left over from an adventure with homemade orange jam), twine, and said leaf centerpiece. I chose this one so I could reuse the attached berries and pine cones for Christmas DIY TBD next month. Once I removed all of the leaves, berries, and pine cones from the "wreath," I was left with this:The leaves came out in pairs, so I cut them apart and tried to lay them out on the jar to attach with twine. However, those slippery little suckers just kept moving from where I placed them. So I came up with this plan: circle the jar with floral wire, stuff stems under wire in a nice overlapping pattern, and then tie the twine around the center of the leaves. Once I got all of the leaves where I wanted them, I removed the twine and was left with something quite nice!What do you think? MUCH better than the lace in my opinion. And the three-step process (as opposed to the original two-step process I initially tried) worked pretty well. This will allow me to remove all of the leaves after Halloween and reuse the jars for something else. Plus, I'll have the individual leaves for something else next year. I'm a big fan of reusing, but not replicating exactly.
Added bonus: This project helped me see that I need to level out my painting and work on my photo-taking skills ;)