These are great for those barbecue parties that run a little late — you’ve watched the sun set, and you’re fumbling around for the s’more fixings. And they’re using something you’d recycle anyway.

Save your cans from tomatoes and beans for a month. After you’ve removed the labels and washed each one, fill with water and freeze.

The next day, use an awl or a hole punch or a screwdriver and punch holes in a decorative pattern in each frozen, filled can. Be generous with the holes, you want as much light as possible to shine through.

Let the ice melt.
(I set the can in my herb garden so it waters it for me.)

Put a tea light or small candle in each can.

Voila! A home made candle holder good for the outside this summer.

I’ve also spray painted the cans to make them look a little more classy, but quite frankly, it’s a garbanzo bean can with holes punched in it, it’s supposed to be a little rustic.

Other summertime, okay-for-outside-candle is the Celebrity Saint Votive:

Take those largish, plain 7 day votives (that you can get at the grocery store in the Mexican food section) and paste a photo or US Weekly photo collage of your favorite celebrity (or the one that most needs your good vibes) on the outside of the candle in the manner of a saint.

(As you may or may not tell by the drawing, I’ve done post-Meyer-breakup Jessica Simpson.)

You could do also put these candles out for place holders around your picnic table for an outdoor party, where each guest could be Lindsay, Brandon or Paris. Determining which guest is which celebrity could be half the fun.

(Also, please don’t burn anything down. These are candle crafts for grownups — not wee’uns.)

You don’t want something made of tacky Walmart plastic.
You don’t want something made of metal.
You don’t want something formal.

You want something light and classy and inexpensive and stylish.

Summmer platters that serve us well:

Cb2 offers these fairly inexpensive shallow, ceramic, oblong serving trays that are big enough for big parties and small enough for a dinner on the veranda. We own two of the largest and two of the mediums and love them to pieces.
(Veranda! I said VERANDA!)

This bamboo tray from Pearl River makes a few choice appetizers look like you’ve worked on them all day — even if it’s an apple with peanut butter on it. Plus it won’t break on the way out to the lanai.*
(Lanai! I said LANAI!)
*Thanks Alison for the gentle correction!

My final favorite are the real life cafeteria trays from our youth. Food friendly, kitchy and utterly indestructable, guests can pile up their food and take it to their seat. It’s a great alternative when your kitchen table isn’t big enough to serve all the folks lined up for your delicious cooking.

Veranda and lanai* were pretty much my only two fancy porch synonyms.
If you have any more, I’ll send you the best vibes.

*Again, thanks Alison.

I forgot to tell you about one of the projects I worked on this year — that might come in handy for your online party planning.

It’s a text-messaging wine pairing tool.

Text your food to #411511 and you’ll get a text message back that pairs wines from my company’s portfolio with your food. The results are most likely easy to find, even available in your grocery store.

My brilliant co-workers devised a very clever pairing matrix, first referencing flavor and then protein — and an 80% word match algorithm. Then, if it STILL isn’t in the database, an actual wine expert goes in and manually pairs the food with wines for the next time someone enters that food. The more we use it, the bigger and more accurate it gets.

It’s awesome.
And could help you plan your next party.