
I guess some people might wonder why you would want to do that, but to me, it's a match made in heaven. I like the way candles look and smell, but I simply won't light them. (The exception being the Balsam and Cedar candle that my mom gave me for Christmas that is smelling soooo good right now.) I don't know why, but I'm not a light the candles every night person, just like I'm not an opening and closing of the drapes person. Anyway, these battery-operated candles are awesome because they have timers that allow them to turn on and off automatically.
The ones at the dollar store are made of plastic, not the prettiest or most authentic looking, but if you are going to put it inside a candle holder, then you might not care. Hobby Lobby and Michaels have some that are made of real wax and they are scented, but don't give off nearly as much scent as a candle like Yankee.
The ones I got for Christmas here (thanks Ang!) are from Flamelesscandles.net, are made from real wax with drips down the side, and are unscented. They have a dual mode timer, 4 hours or 8 hours. Basically, you turn them on at the time of day you want them to come on, and they stay on for 4 hours or 8 hours and then shut off automatically. Then they come on at the same time of day every day (until the battery runs out.) I can't remember how long it said the battery would last, but it seemed like quite a while if you are only running it 4 hours a day.
First I tried them on the mantle, and it wasn't really doing anything for me, so then I put them in front of the fireplace, behind the fireplace screen (another Christmas present). I really like how they look there, and having "fire" in the fireplace is nice since we are also not ones to build a fire very often.
The fireplace screen camouflages the chain metal curtain on the fireplace that's all gross and bent and dirty. Kevin bought it for me for Christmas after I not-so-subtly sent him a link to the Walmart page and said "This is what I want for Christmas." The candle holders are from Goodwill, and are in the early stages of being spray painted. I put one coat of primer on them... I still need to spray another coat of primer and then spray paint them whatever color they're going to be. Or maybe I'll just leave them they way they are since they're behind the screen and you can't really see them very well anyway :-)
In other news, I painted the sitting room this weekend, which is the room next to the kitchen that we opened up by taking the wall down. I am still trying to get the wall art up and then I will take a picture. It might be a while since I have to order some special sized frames on the internet. But it's looking great and so much better than the dirty white paint that was in there before. So much to do, so little time!