This tea light holder was made from a 3.5x9.25'' block of wood that I found. I wanted to create a flexible organic structure.
I started with a sketch and a vague plan to create 6 heptagons which would be held together with a wooden dowel. I had hoped to place one light in each block but it very quickly became apparent that this would not create a stable structure and would be a pretty serious fire hazard.
I cut the blocks with a chop saw and used a band saw to cut down the edges since they didn't need to be super exact. I measured and drilled through them and held them together with a wooden dowel.
With the basic structure complete, I used a router to cut tree-like grooves around the blocks and drilled holes for the tea lights. Since it wasn't stable with six rotated blocks, and even if I weighted it properly, the base of the fourth block was uncomfortably close to the candle on the bottom block, I placed to spaces on the top.
After some sanding my candle holder was complete and could be easily collapsed and stored.
