Yesterday, while catching up on my interweb reading, I came across this article on brit + co … and I couldn’t wait to try it! I was a little skeptical about how easy it seemed in the article, but after giving it a go myself, I can assure you it really is that easy. I think this might be one of my all-time favourite crafts. The lovely people at brit + co suggest using a printer to add designs to the tissue paper, but I don’t have a printer… so I ended up using stamps and drawing designs with fine-tip markers. And it worked perfectly!

The materials you’ll need are:
• white (or light coloured) candles
• white tissue paper
• stamps + ink pad and/or coloured markers
• parchment paper
• scissors
• heat gun (though a hairdryer would be fine, just a little more time consuming)

Start by stamping or drawing your design onto the tissue paper. Make sure you have a sheet or two of regular paper underneath the tissue paper, because the ink will bleed through like crazy.

Trim the edges of the tissue paper so that the design fits properly onto the candle.

Position the tissue paper onto the candle, and without moving the tissue paper, cover with a larger piece of parchment paper and hold tightly in place at the back of the candle with your fingers.

Use the heat gun to apply heat the design. You’ll actually be able to see it melt / fuse to the candle. It’s amazing. Once you’ve gone over the full design with the heat gun, you won’t be able to see the outline of the tissue paper anymore.

Wait a minute or two for the wax to cool down, and peel the parchment paper from the candle. You’ll be amazed how perfect the design is!

And then I went a little candle-happy…

This also works for small candles or candle sticks, just use oven mitts while applying the heat.

This honestly only took a few minutes per candle once I got going. And the possibilities are endless! You can put what ever you like on them. Ooooh – you could personalize them! …

Let me know if you try this! I’d love to see the designs you come up with.