Crayon-Painted Thanksgiving Candle

Turn a dollar-store candle into a custom decorated embellishment for your Thanksgiving dining table or decor. You probably have everything you need at home right now to make a designer candle without spending more than a handful of change. Painting with melted crayons is the technique that makes this candle look dimensional and expensive.

What you need

Things You’ll Need:
• A plain candle
• Crayons in fall colors
• Wax paper
• 20-gauge copper wire
• Green cardstock

Instructions

Lay a sheet of waxed or parchment paper on your work surface to make clean up easy and prevent melted wax from staining your counter. Light the end of a crayon with a match, it will burn like a candle. Paint directly onto your pillar candle or let the wax drip. Use at least three colors and experiment with your technique to build layers and create more dimension.

Tips for Crayon Painting:

• After a minute or so the crayon paper will start leaving black smudges in the melting wax. Extinguish the crayon and let it cool. Tear off the burned paper. You can’t remove all the paper because it’s necessary for the crayon to burn.
• Don’t use water to extinguish the crayon. Residual moisture will cause the wax to sputter and pop if you  light it again.
• Do keep a bowl of ice-water nearby in case you need to extinguish the crayon quickly. If you get hot wax on your skin immediately plunge in into the cold water. Painting with crayons isn’t necessarily dangerous, but you are working with fire and melting wax. Use caution.

To make a dimensional paper leaf glue six 1 ½-inch squares of card stock together with a glue stick. On the last sheet of paper use a paper punch to create a hole to string the embellishment with. Do not glue the punched section down. Cut the leaf shape and draw an outline and leaf veins with a felt pen. Ruffle the edges and bend the leaf up on both sides slightly to give it more texture.  Wrap the copper wire around the candle several times. On the last wrap slide the leaf embellishment onto the wire. Twist the two loose ends of the wire together to secure it to the candle.

To make the candle last burn it down only until there’s a big enough well to hold a small votive candle. Light the votive instead of the larger candle and your custom made candle can be used year after year.