Winter Citrus and Sage Candle
The holidays are over and everyone is ready for that fresh clean home feeling. With the absence of the tree, it feels like our living room doubles in size. But what about celebrating winter? That’s right. How do you like to celebrate the season?
Having seasonal decor (which is totally different from holiday decor) is a fun way to inject a little personality and life into your home. The best way to decorate for the season is to take cues from what is happening outside and in your garden.
The short winter days, in-season citrus fruits, and evergreen herbs were the inspiration for this simple DIY. I dehydrated a variety of citrus fruits (mostly because I was curious) and embellished a battery operated candle with a dried orange slice and some herbs and evergreens. The whole process was super easy and the candle adds just the right amount of winter goodness to our home without taking up half of the space in our living room.
Here are all of the details.
materials
- Baking sheet
- Parchment Paper
- Sharp knife
- Cutting board
- Citrus of your choice (I experimented with grapefruit and oranges- mandarin, navel, and cara cara.)
- Cut sage or other herbs/evergreens
- Twine
- Battery operated candle
- Candle holder or small tray
Citrus Dehydrating Process
Preheat oven to 200° F
Line baking sheet with parchment paper
Slice the citrus ¼ inch thick
Pat both sides of the slices dry with a paper towel
Place the slices on a parchment paper lined baking sheet
Dry in the oven for 4 hours, flip and dry 2 more hours (6 hours total)
After 6 hours, check the slices
If there is still moisture, they need to keep drying (This prevents the slices from molding)
Keep checking the slices every hour and flipping
My slices took close to 8 hours (but I sliced them a little too thick)
Let the slices set out overnight before moving on to the next step
Gather Remaining Materials
- Cut herbs or evergreens from your garden. I used rosemary, arborvitae, sage, and yew. (See above)
- Locate twine, small tray or candle holder, and a battery operated candle (Do not use a regular candle. The herbs and citrus could catch on fire!)
Assembly
- Place the herbs and evergreens that you want to use in a bundle. Tie the bundle together using the twine. (I tied mine together near the bottom, but you could tie it together in the middle.)
- Then select a citrus slice and thread the twine through the center of the slice. The slice I used had multiple holes from the seeds. You can always poke an extra hole with a skewer or dull needle.
- Tie the orange slice to the herb, evergreen bundle.
- Then tie the entire bundle to the candle.
This DIY can be modified so many different ways depending on the citrus you dehydrate and the plants available in your garden. I also loved the way the reddish pink grapefruit looked with the grayish blue sage. You could skip the greens and tie a citrus slice on each side of the candle. Or you could select a larger tray and embellish the tray with the citrus and greens and leave the candle naked. It’s your DIY, go wild!
Through the DIYs and Projects on Grow Together Gardens, I will provide a general how-to, but I encourage you to lean into your curiosity and just try it out. After all, this is all about having fun with our gardens.
Because I experimented with four different varieties of citrus and cut lots of greens from our gardens, I had a lot of leftover materials. I definitely can’t let those go to waste! I will have another DIY using dried citrus on the blog in a few weeks. If you want to see my daily real time projects, head over to Instagram and follow Grow Together Gardens.
