A Valentine's candle for your flame

With less than two weeks left until the big day, are you looking for some inexpensive and unusual gifts or accessories for a romantic dinner? Are you a candlelit dinner's aficioando? Candles always set the scene and make the table setting that little bit extra special (and you won't see the dust bunnies in the corners either).

The candle stamping technique is easy, and you can personalise your candles to your taste.

The original project of a stamped angel candle was created by my friend Lana George whose work has been published by Craft Stamper extensively. Her project appeared in Craft Stamper (January 2009), and it is a beatiful and delicate Christmas candle. I have changed the theme, but followed her step-by-step tutorial which I reproduce here in my own words, with kind permission from Lana.

To make this Valentine's Day candle you will need the following materials:
1 pillar candle
Love Is (IndigoBlu) stamp or any other heart stamp
Stazon (in fuchsia pink) ink
white tissue paper
a piece of parchment or greaseproof paper
pins
heat gun/embossing tool


I got my candle from Waitrose for £1.75.

Take a piece of a tissue paper (I literally raided the box of balsam Kleenex, you need one layer of two). Stamp the heart using Stazon ink.

Cut out the heart shape from the tissue (leaving about 1cm border around it) and tightly wrap around the pillar candle.
Cut a piece of the parchment paper and wrap around the tissue. Secure in place with dress pins (see the image below).

Using a heat gun or an embossing tool, gently heat the surface of the candle. Keep moving the heat gun, as you don't want the wax to melt too deeply (I mean, who would want holes in a Valentine's heart). The heat will melt the wax, and the tissue paper will get absorbed by the candle. Unpin the parchment paper and check that the tissue paper has been absorbed evently. If there are some bits slightly more on the surface, just give it another quick heat wave.

And that's it. You have a unique candle that would look like you have spent a lot of time on creating it. You can also add some Swarowski pearls as an extra decoration to the candle.