DIY Wedding

How to Make a Celebration Candle

Diane Gilleland, contributor

12 users recommend

Customize a pillar candle with decoupage and trim to give it the perfect touch for your party.

Diane Gilleland

You can use any size and most colors of candles. And this is a great project for using up old wrapping papers and interesting ephemera.

Diane Gilleland

I mixed two kinds of Mod Podge to give my candles a little extra shimmer.

Diane Gilleland

Customize a pillar candle with decoupage and trim to give it the perfect touch for your party.

Photo: Diane Gilleland

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Candles always make a gathering more festive. Here's a simple way to dress them up to match your party decor.

What you'll need:

• Pillar candle (see notes below)
• Decorative paper
• Scissors
• Paper grocery bag
• Two pencils
• Masking tape
• Mod Podge (see note below)
• Paintbrush or foam brush
• Ribbon or rickrack (optional)

If you use colored candles, keep in mind that the dyes could run a little once you paint Mod Podge on the candle. Always protect your work surface when doing this project.

A note about Mod Podge: Just for fun, I mixed two kinds of Mod Podge for this project. I stirred a little Shimmer Mod Podge, which is silvery in color, into regular matte finish Mod Podge. The resulting medium has a slight shimmer to it, which is very pretty in person, although very hard to capture in photographs!

Cut out some motifs from lightweight paper.

Begin by cutting out some decorative paper motifs to decorate your candle. The paper should be on the thin side, like old wrapping paper or magazine cutouts. Heavyweight scrapbook papers or photo prints or card stock won't work as well because they don't have enough flexibility to wrap cleanly around the candle.

Prepare your work surface by putting down some paper and taping two pencils to it. These will stabilize the candle.

Next, prepare your work surface. Put down some paper to protect it from spills—as I mentioned last week, I prefer paper grocery bags, cut apart and flattened.

In addition, tape down two pencils side by side, about 1-1/2 inches apart, as shown. These create a nice stabilizer for your candle, so you can lay it on its side while you work, and it won't roll around.

Brush on a generous coat of Mod Podge.

From there, the decoupage process is easy. You'll work one section at a time. Brush a generous coat of Mod Podge on the candle where you want the paper to be.

Place the paper cutout over the glue layer.

Immediately place the paper cutout over the glue. This will saturate the back side of the paper.

Brush more Mod Podge over the cutout.

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Comments (3)

CraftyJana writes: Happy to see that someone else is making creative candles for special events.
I also make personalized candles.
Have made them for my children, grandchildren & friends. Have been used for baptisms, adoptions, weddings etc. They make nice keepsakes for future use.

However I make a design with computer graphics, then add the names, dates, etc.
attach this to the inexpensive candle. I have only done white candles.
Heat 2 large squares of wax (the kind we used to use for jelly)
I use a kettle as a double boiler and place the wax in a metal coffee can.
Carefully melt all of the wax. Take from fire...
Tie a string to the wick of the candle
Dip the candle in the hot wax. I usually give it two dips. You want it completely immersed in the wax.
Let it cool.
Makes a beautiful personalized keepsake.
I have not had a failure yet.

Posted: 2:55 pm on June 26th

NancyWard writes: Hi!

Today I posted an entry on my blog with a link to this tutorial.

Would you let me know if that's OK?

Thanks,

Nancy Ward
http://paperfriendly.blogspot.com
Posted: 10:11 am on June 24th

Teks_Glutes writes: Oh man, you gave me a great idea! Thanks!
Posted: 11:44 pm on May 15th

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