Candelabras are an excellent addition to your altar to hold your ritual candles as well as to set the mood. Both elegant and romantic, with molten wax flowing down the sides, they can be nothing less than splendid. While you can always buy a candelabra, it is much better to make them yourself and place your imprimatur and your own special kind of magic in them. The following are the steps I learned from the one and only Aurelio Voltaire, who is a writer, musician, animator, graphic novelist, comic, and all-around Renaissance man.

Supplies:

• Empty wine bottles

• Black spray paint (or a color of your choice)

• Spray adhesive

• Paper images or stickers

• Candles

Directions:

1. Have fun by emptying some bottles of wine, preferably by drinking their contents! If you do not imbibe, you can get bottles from friends or from a recycling center.

2. Give the bottles a good spraying with the flat black paint and let them dry.

3. You can stop here, but it is even better to refine your design with your own art, stickers you particularly love, or even decoupaged (or spray-glued) photos evocative of your mood and magic. Voltaire recommends the “Bandelabra,” featuring photos, stickers, lyrics, or an image representing your favorite band, such as Dead Can Dance’s beautiful images of hands and serpent coils from their CD covers, or a particularly spooky-looking shot of Siouxsie Sioux, of The Cure’s Robert Smith, or maybe even of the beautiful and very talented Voltaire! Personally, I like to use still shots from movies that I feel reflect my personal pagan energy. Some examples for a dark pagan might be any and all Dracula movies, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Crow, The Nightmare Before Christmas, or The Book of Life. As long as these are for your own enjoyment and edification, you do not have to be concerned about copyrights, but if you suddenly decide to start eBaying your handcrafted candelabras, you must get legal clearance.

A personal favorite of mine is Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula; and above all, my favorite moment in this gorgeous visual feast is the absinthe-inspired section with verdant greens, light and shadow play, and yearning past-life romance. So, I suggest leaving the wine bottle in its native green state and going for green candles with a touch of green glitter and emerald stick-on stones to evoke the green fairy.

This is the easiest candelabrum of all—just place a candle inside the neck of the bottle, light it, and you have a very elegant and dreamy-looking light source.