For the creative candlemaker, the freshly made candle is but a base of operations, the raw material for the candle-to-be. Candle finishing can be plain and simple—like the cold water bath for sheen, and nylon pantyhose for polish—but there are so many decorating options, why would you stop with that? This chapter takes the already discussed methods a step further down the road toward real artistry.
In order to use plant materials for appliquéing, they must first be dried. To dry leaves, grasses, flowers, herbs, etc., lay them flat between two sheets of tissue paper inside the middle pages of a heavy book.
You should prepare your dried flowers, grasses, herbs, or other plant material at least ten days or so before you plan to use them. You might gather wild grasses from your backyard or use flower petals or whole flowers from your garden or the florist shop.
Be aware that some flowers will take longer to dry than others. In general, grasses and petals will dry in a week to ten days. Whole flowers like geraniums, alyssum, and pansies may take as long as three weeks to dry properly. These, however, are excellent choices for appliquéing on candles.
Candles of almost any shape can be appliquéd successfully. However, choose shapes that will complement the plant material. Long grasses would look best on a tall, slender pillar or block candle. A single pansy might be perfect on a globe-shaped candle. You might use a spray of leaves to decorate a tall pillar, and leave room at the top for a flower.
Pressed flowers—and other plant material—work especially well in “church candles,” which are made with beeswax. They not only burn longer, but because beeswax is naturally sticky, it is easier to attach the flowers and leaves to it.
What is the appliqué technique in candlemaking?
The appliqué technique is attaching relatively flat plant material to the candle’s surface. Alternatively, you can attach shapes made from thin sheets of wax cut into various shapes such as stars, flowers, hearts, and the like.
As for choosing colors, it is best to stick to white or pale candles, which set off the colors of the dried grasses or flower petals. For example, if you are going to use dark green grasses, they would look nice against a light green background. Purple pansies would be outstanding against a pale lilac background.
You can use three variations of the “adhere and overdip” technique with natural material such as flowers, leaves, herbs, grasses, and the like.
Using straight pins, pin the surface decorations to the candle, sticking the pins in straight; then overdip. (These pins will be removed later; keep reading.)
Dip the plant material itself into melted wax and stick it onto the candle while the wax coating is still hot.
Use the rounded backside of a heated spoon to warm the candle’s surface. To do this, heat the spoon (you can lean it against the back of an electric iron or dip it in boiling water) and press it against the plant material laid on the candle. This will soften the wax under the dried plant stuff, melting it into the candle.
Once you have attached your dried flowers or grasses to the candle, overdip the entire candle in clear wax at 205° Fahreinheit for three seconds.
Do not use stearic acid in the wax you use for overdipping! It will make the outer coating of wax on the candle opaque, and thus obscure the decorations.
Remove candle from overdipping wax and while the surface is still warm, with your fingers or a spoon or the flat of a knife, press all the ends and stems of the plant fibers firmly into the candle’s surface. Make sure everything adheres flat and nothing is sticking out. If you used pins, remove them.
Return the candle to the overdipping wax can and immerse it for two seconds. Then plunge the candle into cold water.
You can make any number of interesting shapes from wax to use as an appliqué. Before starting out on such a project, make a collection of wax shapes in various sizes, shapes, and colors. Then, when you are ready to decorate your candle, you’ll have the materials at hand.
Here’s how to make wax shapes:
Prepare shallow baking pans (such as cookie sheets with rims), one for each color you want. Next, melt enough wax to form a ¼” coating on each sheet. (You can measure this in water first.)
Melt your wax in the usual way and pour out just enough to cover the bottom of the baking sheet. When wax is set but still warm, cut out shapes, using cookie cutters. While the wax is still warm, remove the shapes and press them with your fingers into formed shapes, such as flowers or angel wings made from a heart shape. Or, simply leave the cut out shapes in the pan to cool and use them as they are.
Adhere the wax cutouts to the candle either with wax glue or by using the hot spoon method described in the previous section. Attach the shape onto the candle where you have melted the surface wax.
When you have applied all the shapes to your candle—it’s a good idea to draw out your design beforehand—follow the instructions for overdipping. Be sure to overdip quickly so that your wax shapes don’t melt off!
You can dip fresh flowers into pure paraffin wax and use them for appliqué. They are most charming when applied to the surface of large candles, especially pillars. Many flower blossoms can be used with this technique—roses, lilies, pansies, sweet peas, geraniums, and daisies, for instance.
To dip a flower in wax, you can run a florist’s wire (used to hold long-stemmed flowers upright) through the center of the flower and hold it by the wire’s end. Or, you can hold the flower by its stem (use long tweezers if the stem is fairly short).
Be sure to have all of your wax melting paraphernalia in order and ready to go before you cut the fresh flowers or take them out of their water. If the flowers have been sitting in a vase of water, take care to dry their stems on paper towels so as not to get water in your melted wax.
When you are set up, dip a flower once. While it is warm, reshape it with your fingers to its original form. Lay the dipped flower on a lined tray and spoon melted wax over it to achieve a second coating. As these fresh flowers coated with wax are exceptionally fragile and delicate, you must take great care when adhering them to your candle.
You can achieve a wonderful effect by pasting openwork such as lace or paper doilies on candles. Any kind of paper cutouts will work, and you can design your own with ease. Just draw (or trace) a pattern on a piece of paper and cut out the segments with an Exacto knife or a razor blade. You can attach the paperwork to the candle with wax glue, hot wax, library paste, or spray adhesive.
It’s best to use this technique on large pillar candles so that there is no danger of the paper catching fire. When the candle burns down, the light will shine through the pattern of the lace or cutout paper. The well formed by the melted wax in a pillar is far enough away from the outer shell of the candle to prevent a mishap. Nonetheless, never forget the cardinal rule of burning candles: NEVER, EVER LEAVE A BURNING CANDLE UNATTENDED!
Strictly speaking, inlaying is not a true finishing technique. As we said earlier, inlays are an advanced form of embedding—the difference being that the attaching is done from the inside of the candle, rather than from the outside. The final effect, however, is of a surface technique; therefore, we include this method here.
Basically, to make an inlay you stick either chunks or pieces of candle wax, or some non-wax object, such as slices of dried fruit, to the inside of the candle mold before filling it up with wax. This is a variation of the pour-in/pour-out method, except that in between pourings you embed things in the outer layer of wax you made with the first pour. (See “The Pour-In/Pour-Out Method for Molds,” p. 211.)
When the candle is removed from the mold, what you have stuck in the wax inside the mold is revealed as “inlays,” or contrasting visual objects inside the candle itself. This is a fascinating technique to work with and can produce many interesting and artistic results. There is practically no limit to what you can use for inlays—as long as what you use is not flammable. You can, as just noted, use chunks of other candles (more about this in a moment), slices of dried fruit (details will follow as well), or such things as nuts, nutshells, seashells, whole spices, beads, and baubles.
David Constable, in his book Candlemaking, offers a design he calls a “bull’s eye.” It is quite attractive and easily done. According to Constable, “The bull’s-eye candle is an attractive design, with a slightly spooky effect when lit that children seem to love.”
To make Constable’s bull’s-eye candle, you need the usual equipment for candlemaking, plus an electric iron or mineral spirits. In addition, you will need three dipping cans for three different colors.
First, take a colored dipped taper candle. Overdip three additional colors onto the candle. (See the sections on overdipping in Chapter 8.) The final diameter of the taper should be 1½”. The best length is about 6” or a bit more.
After the overdipped candle has cooled completely, slice it into l” pieces horizontally, like you’d slice an orange or lemon. Next, using wax glue, stick one slice to each of two opposite faces of a square mold (4”–6” square). Wick mold per instructions in Chapter 7.
Pour the melted wax into the mold following basic instructions for making molded candles. Wait forty minutes before poking holes in the surface and adding additional wax. Allow the wax in the mold to cool completely, then remove from the mold. Smooth the sides of the candle against a warm electric iron, or polish with mineral spirits. Buff with a wet tissue.
This is truly an extraordinary candle, and David Constable is to be congratulated on its unique design. Do try making one—you’ll love it and so will the kids!
Using the same idea, you can make all sorts of variations on this theme. For example, you can get a stained-glass effect by using square slices of candle set in a square mold. Or, you could use diamond shapes, or triangles, or any other shape instead of the round “bull’s eye.” Here we go again—experiment … use your imagination … have fun!
This design is from another candlemaking wizard, Sue Spears, author of Candlemaking in a Weekend. Though the result is spectacular, the process is simplicity itself. There’s a catch here, however. Unlike the inlaid candle described above, Ms. Spears’s design is actually a candleholder made of wax—or a candle within a candle. It’s also a variation of the pour-in/pour-out method already described.
Here’s how she describes the “Lantern Candle with Dried Fruits”: “A wonderful, everlasting gift, this unique wax lantern would make a welcome decoration in any home. The warm colors of the dried fruit embedded in the sides glow warmly when a candle is placed inside the lantern and lit.” And she is absolutely right!
As Ms. Spears is British, I’ve modified her fruit selection just a bit to accommodate what is readily available in American supermarkets. To wit, you’ll need an orange, a lemon, a lime, a peach, and a kiwi fruit.
Cut each of the fruits into thin slices. Place all on a cookie sheet in a warm oven (150° Fahrenheit) for one to two hours, or until the fruit is dehydrated.
Using a rectangular mold—half a half-gallon milk carton is good—melt clear paraffin (about 2 pounds) and pour it into the mold. When the wax has cooled sufficiently for a layer about ¼” thick to have formed on the top, cut out the top layer using an Exacto or craft knife, lift it out of the container with a spatula, and set aside.
Pour out the molten wax still inside and reserve. You should have an inner layer thick enough to embed the dried fruit slices firmly. You must work quickly with this method, as the wax is already partially hardened. Press slices of the dried fruit into the wax covering the sides of the molds. You needn’t be particular about the order or the design as whatever you do will look spectacular! Do try, however, to use different pieces of fruit next to each other rather than piling up one kind in a single area.
Once you have embedded the fruit slices, remelt your wax, including the slice from the top, and repour. Pour to about ½” from the top edge of the inner layer. Allow to set as before, and again cut out the top, partially hardened layer so that you can again pour out the still molten wax. You will have sealed the dried fruit in between two layers of wax—which is what makes this a permanent decorative holder rather than a mere candle.
To use your “lantern,” place a votive candle or a tealight in a glass holder into the center of the lantern and light. Then, just stand back and admire your work!
You can make the fruit-embedded inlay into a regular candle if you like. Just follow the instructions for making the bull’s-eye candle on p. 246. Alternatively, you can turn the bull’s-eye candle into a lantern. Both methods are interchangeable and useful fodder for your imagination.
Either of the above methods can be used for inlaying other objects, such as seashells or dried herbs, leaves, flowers, and other plant material. You can even use pebbles or small garden stones for an outdoorsy look. Try wood bark for a rustic effect, or use vegetables such as zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, and parsley sprigs for a vegetarian surprise.