Transferring images to candles

To go with the bookmarks I showed on Monday here for Annie and Jo, I made these:

Before I list what I used, there are some things you might find handy if you decide to have a play at transferring images to candles.

Here's a very good little tutorial - I had made one of these previously for a friend in 2011 but did refer to the tutorial to remind myself.

Secondly, the first time I made a candle like this back in 2011 I used ordinary greaseproof paper. In fact looking at the post just now I did add a few piccies and details of the whole process. Anyhow, this time I used some of the waxed paper I'd bought for using with intricate dies and it really is considerably better. Joanna Sheen stocks it here, but sadly it's only for shipping within the UK.

Thirdly, and I have no idea how you can work this one out at the point of purchase - I bought ivory coloured candles. My first go at the poppies candle almost left me in tears - right at the very end of the heating process, a chunk of ivory wax over half an inch square and about an eighth of an inch thick came away, leaving white wax showing. So, IF you can find plain white candles I'd go for those as it looks as if the ones I used had a final dipping into ivory wax just as a thick coating - the lovely WOYWW Julia knew about this 'fenominum' when we spoke last week. However, I got there in the end on the second attempt!

I used:

- pillar candles, these were approx. 6" high and 2.5" wide. Mine were from the TU range at Sainsburys, thankfully I bought a box of four 'cos I needed a third one after the 'blip' I just wrote about

- stamps used are poppies from Hero Arts' 'Delicate Blossoms' set and mixed flowers from Kanban's 'Stamp 06' set. Stamped with Stazon black ink pad onto white tissue paper and coloured with Whispers pens to match yesterday's bookmarks

- then trimmed each image quite closely, placed onto a candle and covered with wax paper, leaving plenty to hold round the back of the candle whilst heating the front over the image with the heat gun

- you can see the image changing colour through the wax paper which lets you know that it's being slightly absorbed into the candle wax

Then I just wrapped them in cellophane with a piece of knotted ribbon on top - and added little glass dishes to stand them on so the girls didn't have to go hunting for old saucers.

Do have a play if you haven't already tried this one - it's great fun!

Di
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WOYWW - 134

I won't show you the heap of stuff pushed to the right hand side of what I think might be a desk underneath all of the Christmas crafting stuff I need to sort out and put away - instead, this is how I left the reasonably clear centre of my desk yesterday:

I think the little break from crafting has kick started the missing mojo a bit and quite a few ideas are spinning round.

One was something I'd planned to do for Christmas but 'the lurgy' had other ideas so I never got round to it. So, yesterday I had a little play - see the candle just behind the glass cutting mat?

For a first attempt it's 'OK' but certainly not perfect, although I learned a few things along the way :)

First of all I stamped a couple of Hero Arts 'Delicate Blossoms' images onto white tissue paper using a black Memento ink pad. Oh boy, finding white tissue paper in the shops was like looking for hen's teeth (sorry Sarn!) in the run-up to Christmas. Patterned and every colour under the sun galore but no plain white, although I did finally find some on my last pre-Christmas supermarket run. By then I felt too rough to do more than just dump the packet on my desk though :(

Then I trimmed round one of the images. This was a bit of 'the unknown' for me as I wasn't 100% sure if leaving bits of tissue in the middle would work OK. This next photo is a challenge for you to work out what the heck it's supposed to show:

Told you! What happened is that the light was bouncing off the baking parchment plus I was taking the photo while holding the camera between my teeth (joke - although perhaps that would have worked better!). Basically you cut a long strip of backing parchment, wide enough to cover the height of the image and long enough to gather the excess at the back of the candle  in your hand. That's my hand at the bottom of the photo. The coloured image on the trimmed tissue paper is placed onto a pillar candle (I used a run of the mill one from Sainsburys), then the baking parchment was positioned over it to hold it in place and the excess gathered tightly into my left hand at the back. You can use waxed paper, greaseproof paper or baking parchment - I just used what I found first in the kitchen :)

The next stage was FUN, although it's very easy to get carried away. Heat your heat gun for about 30 seconds and then, still holding the baking parchment tightly round the candle wave the gun to and fro over the image from about 2" away. The important bit is that you'll see the image sort of deepening in colour as it melts into the candle - keep that gun moving 'cos it's really easy to begin to melt the candle too much!

And this is the end result above. There are loads of tutorials on the internet and I expect lots of you will already have tried doing this before so I could be trying to 'teach Granny to suck eggs here'.

The things I learned doing this are: Don't be frightened about tearing the tissue while you're colouring in if you use Pro Markers - I was surprised at how robust it was, although I was probably gentler than usual. Not a single tear! You should trim the tissue round the image - but don't worry too much about getting into every nook and cranny as the tissue just sinks into the softened wax on the candle. For my next try I'm going to find a way to tightly adhere the parchment at the back so I can cradle the candle in an oven mitt or something rather than wrestling with a crumpled handful of parchment. Also, don't overdo the heating - the change in colour as you wave the heat gun over the image is a good indicator. Even though I was really careful it was a close call!! Any little excess bits of wax can be whisked off with a soft brush once the candle has fully cooled.

So, what am I going to do with this? We're going to friends this evening and they have red poppies on their curtains so this is a little something to take, along with wine and such, once I've wrapped it in cellophane with a nice bow :)

So, that's my WOYWW - to see what everyone else is up to hop over to Julia's here. I bet there could have been some tidying going on - last week was such fun seeing the chaos some folk were in, including me needless to say! Our next WOYWW will be in 2012 - see you in the New Year!

Di
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