Candles for Christmas ... printing on tissue

Hi everyone, hope you all had a great week.  Weather has been very mixed here, can’t believe how the weather has changed since I got back from holiday, we were SO lucky.

This week I was going to start making my Christmas cards, but a rush samples job from MCS came in so I have put it to one side for a few days.  I have decided that this year I am going to use the Heartfelt Creations Christmas Card paper pack with some MCS elements and sentiments from the Christmas Overtures CD along with some dies that I already have.  If they are any good I will put some pics on here, if not you won’t hear anything about them!  Anyway in the spirit of Christmas I thought I would share some candles I made for some friends of ours a couple of years ago.  I had the idea to use a photo from their wedding to add to the Christmas images, see what you think.  I'm not quite sure why they all look like they are leaning to the left, must be my poor photography.

First I went through my CDs looking for Christmas images that would be suitable for the candles I found these images on the MCS Craft e Christmas, Christmas Sparkles CD.  I know that most people print off one sheet and then melt it onto the candle as a whole, but I find it easier to rough cut round the images and put them on separately.  I seem to not have enough pairs of hands to hold a whole sheet in place without wrinkles and also hold the wax paper in place and then pick up the heat gun!

I had bought several candles in different sizes as I made them for a few people that year and chose three that I thought looked good grouped together.  Then I measured each candle and made a note of the height and the circumference of each one.  Then I went to the computer and got the images that would fit each candle from the CD and added them all on top of each other till I was happy with each one and then I got the wedding picture and spent AGES with the scissor tool cutting round it in MCS, it took a long time because the grooms suit blended into the background so it wasn't that obvious where I had to cut.

Next I made three pages in MCS in the sizes I had already noted and placed variations of the images that I had chosen on to the pages, shrinking the images where necessary for the smaller candles.  I like that you don’t have to reverse the wording when printing on tissue paper as you can just turn the tissue round.  When I was satisfied with the result and had printed off a test of each one on copy paper to check that everything looked okay, I printed onto the tissue paper.  Now this is a bit hit and miss for me, I don’t do it very often and find that each time I have to play around with the printer settings and how you attach the tissue to the copy paper before I get a decent page.  When I did the candle for the MCS Whispers and Wishes sample it took blinking ages as the printer kept eating the tissue paper … so much so that I actually printed it off three times, three lots got chewed by the printer but I just cut out the bits I could rescue and flattened the wrinkles out when I heated them onto the candle!

So now I had three pages of tissue ready for the candles.  I rough cut round the images for each candle and placed them where I wanted them, then I got my silicone paper (couldn't get hold of any wax paper at the time) and wrapped it round the candle in such a way that I could grab a handful of the silicone paper at the back and keep my hand away from the heat when I used the heat gun.  When you use the heat gun keep it moving, not too close to the candle, until you see the wax paper ‘melt’ into the candle but not so long that the candle goes soft.  I know from many mistakes that once you have a dent in the candle you can’t get it to look perfect again afterwards no matter what you do.  Then take the silicone paper and shuffle it about on the candle so that you sort of buff the surface so it gets a bit of a sheen and you are done.

I have included a picture of how I wrapped them – the cellophane and ribbons were really cheap off the internet but I think it made it look much prettier (but then again, I would, wouldn't I?!) the gold ribbon is the same stuff I used on the gift bag from last week.

Apologies for the photography here and especially for the samples next week, my only excuse is that there was no natural light as I had to pack them up to send off and it was after midnight!

MCS samples again next week as Nancy Watt will be on Create and Craft TV on Monday 4 November with the Four Day Deal, it's a My Paper Stash show - you will have to tune in to see what it is.  I have done some samples but it’s always a bit worrying to see whether they will be used – how mortifying if none of them are good enough!  If I don’t mention them next week … you’ll know what’s happened!!

Anyway, have a lovely crafty week everyone and thanks for stopping by.