Phenomenally Crafty: Super Easy Decorative Candles

This quick, easy project makes a great gift and is endlessly customizable, just choose whatever color or pattern of tissue paper fits your needs and select a matching ribbon to finish it off.

Here's a list of materials needed:

A plain white pillar candle. I used 3"x6" size, but you could use any size. You are going to cover over it, so get a cheap one.
A heat gun. My heat gun is a whopper. It's actually for shrink wrapping gift baskets, but I use it for everything from embossing to melting wax for envelope seals. You don't have to pack as much heat as I do, a simple small heat embossing tool would work equally well for this project.
Tissue paper. Pick a pretty, decorative one.
Ribbon. Coordinate it with your tissue paper.
Adhesive glue dots. I got mine in the scrapbook aisle at Michael's. They are by Recollections. Pick the size appropriate for the width of your ribbon. I am using small.
Scissors.

Cut the tissue to fit your candle. You want the white of your candle to peak around your tissue, so allow yourself a little bit of room for this. Since I am using a candle six inches tall, I have cut my tissue to a width of five inches. Allow enough length for the entire circumference of the candle plus a little overlap.

Lay the candle down on the table with the tissue under it, design side down. Like this:

Make sure your tissue is smoothed out, and give a it couple practice rolls. When you feel comfortable with the alignment of your tissue fire up your heat tool. Heat the tissue wrapped candle holding the gun about 4 inches away from the candle. The idea is to encase the candle with the tissue, adhering it by melting the wax slightly. Start with a couple inches then roll the candle and move onto the next few inches of tissue. The tissue will slightly darken when the wax adheres to it. As your work wipe any excess wax or bubble out with your free hand, but BE CAREFUL, it's called a HEAT GUN because it's HOT. When you get to the end you may need to hold the heat to the seam a little longer to get both sides of the tissue at the overlap to adhere.

Now you have this:

That's cute on its own, but let's take it up a notch. Cut your decorative ribbon long enough to wrap around your candle. Place a glue dot on the seam of your candle, and adhere one end of the ribbon. Wrap the ribbon tightly around the candle, and then adhere it again on the back seam with another glue dot. For the bow I just cut the ribbon longer, placed my glue dot in the back and wrapped my open ends to the front. Then I tied a basic bow. A gift tag could also be attached that way.

The Back Seam

That's it! You're all done! I told you it was fast!

These make a perfect gift, especially when done in wedding or sorority colors. A pink or blue set would make a cute centerpiece for a baby shower. Here is a variation I did using a darker tissue with watercolor effect print and a natural hemp cord: