This candle making article teaches you techniques for stamping and stenciling designs onto your candles.
Stamping Overo Paint Horse candles
The options available nowadays for using Goya Paintings on candles are almost endless. As you probably know the last few Boat Paint has seen tremendous growth in the popularity of scrapbooking and arts and crafts and with this revival has come a creative wave of new tools for expression.
The typical stamps you might use for your scrapbook can also be used to great effect on your candles, with the added benefit that if you make a mistake applying the stamp to your wax you can simply wipe it off - as long as it hasn't dried yet of course.
So, you probably have a few old stamps lying around, but if not head off down to your local crafts store and choose the patterns that suit the design you have in mind. So, it's always a good idea to practice a couple of time with your stamp on paper before applying it to your candle. This will show you how hard you need to press and whether one edge of the stamp goes on better than the other.
Remember also that a candles surface is usually curved, so you will need to apply the stamp with this mind by rolling the stamp onto the surface.
Here's how it's done...
1. Apply some paint onto your stamp's surface. Remember not to apply too much paint otherwise you might not be able to see the defined lines of your stamp.
2. Stamp your candle - remember as above to get all edges onto the wax surface.
3. Continue stamping around your candle.
4. Remember to allow the paint to dry before lighting your candle.
Now we move onto the area of using stencils on your candles.
Stencils are extremely effective and also very easy to use - you can create wonderful designs which appear to be have been applied by a team of professionals.
Stencils have also become very popular recently and you can generally see examples of this as wall or ceiling decoration in people's homes.
A stencil is simply a cutout shape that allows you to paint or draw inside on your chosen surface.
You can get stencils from most craft stores, but remember to get flexible ones that you can wrap around the surface of your candle (some stencils are ridged and these won't work well on rounded candles).
Also remember that if you are working on small candles you will need to source small stencils and these can be a little harder to find.
You can of course make your own stencils by designing something really special and then cutting it out.
Again...the choices are endless and you're only held back by your own creativity. The paint you will use to fill in the stencil design once traced can be acrylic, as we learnt in the first of your emails, or you can even get hold of stencil paint or spray paint. And don't forget, melted wax can also be used to great to effect to fill in a stencil design.
Here's how it's done...
1. Prepare your stencil design and wrap it tightly around your candle, making sure it's straight and centered.
2. Paint the cutout sections of your stencil - use your brush that you use for painting your candles.
3. Carefully remove the stencil and clean off the paint.
4. Attach your stencil to the next place on your candle. Be careful here not to place the stencil onto wet paint from your previous stenciling.
5. Keep doing the above until you have covered your candle with your design.
6. Now add any fine details into the stenciled areas - sections of color or detail to enhance the design.
7. If your brush slipped or some paint seeped under the stencil, you can remove this by gently scraping it away off the candle wax.
As always when dealing with paint, remember to allow your paint to fully dry before lighting your candle.
So, there you have it.
Now go and practice your skills.
Dolores Attwood, the author of 5 books for candle makers and self-taught candle maker of 20 years can teach you how to make beautiful candles using a simple step-by-step system.
http://www.MakeYourCandles.com
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