Stamping on Candles

Now here's something I have been meaning to try for some time now. The first hurdle was to find reasonably priced candle so that failure would not be too costly!! So having found some small, vanilla scented candle in a pack of 3, I thought I'd give it a go. If all went wrong, I could burn the candle myself and enjoy the aroma. But my very first attempt, the Snowflake in the middle, was perfect. I couldn't believe how quick and simple it could be!

So how is it done?

If you thought that I have a very steady hand whilst rolling the rubber stamp on the surface of the candle, you'd be wrong!
The secret is by stamping your image onto tissue paper. And I just had a whole unopened ream of A2 size, white tissue paper which I had bought a while ago , to do....... I can't remember what, but I'm so glad I have it!
Having stamped your image, cut around the image leaving about 5mm around the edges. Then with a strip of waxed paper or greaseproof paper that is slightly wider than the height of the candle, and about twice as long as the circumference of the candle, place the stamped image in position and wrap the greseproof paper around the candle to hold it in place. The excess greaseproof serves as a handle to hold the image and candle together whilst setting the design.
Allow your heatgun to heat up for about 10 seconds before directing the heat towards the stamped image through the greaseproof paper. Watch the edges of the tissue paper around the image as they will gradually disappear, showing that the image is joining with the candle. Don't focus in one spot for too long! I tend to blow the heat over the whole area to start and then follow the disappearing tissue edges around the image, then finish with an allover blast.
Then carefully peel back the greaseproof paper to reveal a perfectly stamped candle. Very satisfying!

I'm hooked on this technique so I had to play some more but this time an all occasion candle, using Close as a Memory stamp set. I used the Stampin Write markers to give different colours on areas of the stamp - with a bit of 'huffing' to remoisten the inks. Finished off with ribbon around the bottom of the candle - purely for decoration and should be removed before burning the candle!

If you would like to try stamping on candles, I shall be running workshops in the New Year. Watch this space for more details.

Thanks for looking.

Tricia-x-