Today I’m sharing my easy Harry Potter Style Floating Candles Tutorial. It’s no secret that I am a pretty big Harry Potter fangirl. So much so, a few years ago, I made my own floating candles for Halloween. This year, 8 year old Syd and I have FINALLY got around to making this Harry Potter style floating candles tutorial. Better late than never, right? Read on to find out what you’ll need and how to make them, in time for Halloween.

Harry Potter Style Floating Candles Tutorial

I made these floating candles for the first time back in 2018. I learnt a few things in the process, including how important it is to save your toilet roll tubes! If you haven’t got an abundance of them, don’t worry – you can still follow this Harry Potter style floating candles tutorial to make some epic Harry Potter floating candles. I’ll show you a cool hack.  The below photo is my very first attempt – not bad for my first try, huh.

To make your own Harry Potter style floating candles, you will need:

• Toilet Roll Tubes (Or Kitchen Roll Tubes).
• Artificial tea lights (I bought these).
• Sticky Tape
• Glue Gun (Mine is this one).
• White Paint (I just used kids poster paint).
• Fishing line (I bought this one).
• Something to stick them to the ceiling. (Blu-tac is fine).
• Plain white paper.

If you don’t have toilet roll tubes, you can always roll up thick white paper, so one of the tea lights fit inside it. (Doing this will save you painting the tubes, too). My advice is to make sure your tubes are a bit bigger than the tea lights, so you can switch them on and off easily.

Harry Potter Style Floating Candles Tutorial…

Step 1:

Firstly, make sure your tea lights fit into your tubes. If the tubes are too small, you’ll have to source larger ones, or roll up white paper to make your tubes. Next, draw around the base of each tube, cut it out and stick it onto one end the tube with the glue gun, to make the bottom of your candle.

If you’re using toilet roll tubes, you need to paint them white. Syd and I used the kids’ poster paint for this, and it took 2 coats. Don’t forget to paint the inside of the tube, so you can’t see the brown cardboard around the tea light. Don’t worry about doing a perfect job – you won’t see it in the dark, and it all adds to the effect anyway.

Step 2:

Once your tube is painted and has the base stuck in place, it’s time to work out where your artificial tea lights will sit in the tube. You want them near the top, so the “wick” is visible above the line of the tube.

I used sticky tape to create a shelf for the tea light to sit on. I did this by placing two strips of tape in an “x” shape, and sticking the 4 pieces inside the tube, at the top. This created somewhere to pop the tea light in and out to switch it on and off.

Pierce two holes on opposite sides of the tube, near the top. You will thread the fishing line through these to suspend the candle later on.

Step 3

At this point in my Harry Potter style floating candles tutorial, It’s time to get the glue gun out! Once it’s heated up, start at the top of the tube and create “drips” down the side of the tubes. If you use clear or white glue sticks, you won’t need to re-paint these once they are dry. This is my favourite stage of the Harry Potter style floating candles tutorial!

Step 4:

Once the glue is dry, thread the fishing wire through the holes you made earlier. I knotted the wire inside the tube, on either side. So you can’t see the knots from the outside. You can play around with the string length, to create different effects.

Step 5:

Pull the tags out of your fake tea lights and pop them into your tubes, then hang them up! That’s the end of the making part of my easy Harry Potter style floating candles tutorial. Read on for ways to hang them!

There are loads of different ways to suspend your Harry Potter style floating candles. Firstly, you can use blue-tac to hang them from your ceiling or porch. Alternatively, you can tie them all to a light fitting or hook on the ceiling.

If your kids are going trick or treating, they can also hold the candle, and use it as a spooky lantern too.

Last time I made these Harry Potter style floating candles, I hung them from the porch outside, on Halloween. How cool do they look!

So there you have it! That’s all the Information you need to create your own Harry Potter Style Floating Candles. Let me know in the comments if this Harry Potter style floating candles tutorial has been useful. Feel free to tag me on social, if you make them too – I’d love to see your versions of these!