Candle DIY

Like I said earlier I am going to do a DIY for the candle prop I made.

Materials:
-Cardstock
-Hot Glue Gun
-Hot Glue Sticks
-Base (Candlestick or whatever you want your candle mounted on)
-Acrylic Paint
      -Cream
      -Golden Yellow
-Small brush
-Medium brush
-Tweezers
-LED Tealight


Steps:
1. Create a tube or multiple tubes out of the card stock. Make sure they have a large enough diameter to fit the tea light. If you want a short skinny candle you can wrap the card stock around the tea light.
2. Cut the tube to size. Cut it with a bit of a dip, look up candle pics to see how wax naturally melts, usually there is a dip where most of the wax drips out.
3. Mount your tube. Take your glue gun and glue your tube at the base. I mentioned before you don't have to make one candle, for a commission I did for a Halloween attraction I created little scenes of candles mounted on boards which were put up on shelves and I included potion bottles and other creepy accents...

Here you can see the variety of options you have.

-As a side note, if you have a candelabra you would like to do this to there are a variety of electric candle stores that have options for candelabras. but note when you do the drips don't go to the base because with mine you unscrew them to change the batteries, until we have never dying batteries we will have this problem...

Candelabra Option

4. With the cardstock candle cut out a circle roughly the same size as the circumference of your candle, it doesn't have to look nice because no one will see it... then hot glue it inside the tube as a platform for your tea light, so make sure it is low enough to put your light at the level you want.

5. Now is the fun part to 'melt' your candle. Make sure to have a few glue sticks ready for when you run out. I first go around the top edge of the tube to round it out. To create the drips you hold your glue gun in one spot and pull the trigger to squeeze out a large amount of molten glue. vary up how much you squeeze out and you will see it naturally drip down the tube at different lengths. Using reference photos, or like in the photo of the examples you can get a real candle and melt it to see the types of patterns it does. Note that many modern day pillar candles are designed to not drip, so you may need to coax it by holding it at an angle for a bit. Just experiment and you may find some awesome results! Also after it cools add layers to add more effect.

6. You can see on my first picture I had drips that hang over the edge of the base. it is similar to creating drips on the tube, but you have to practice a bit, because if you get too much it stays hot too long and falls to the table creating annoying stringy stuff. You may even need to blow on it to help it cool down faster.

7. After you are happy with the patterns and design of the wax, if you are like me you get thin stringy stuff here and there from when you pull the glue gun away. pick as much off as you can, use tweezers if you need. If you don't they are exaggerated when you paint them in the next step.

8. Take your cream acrylic paint and paint over everything that is 'candle'. If you want the LED to glow through the paper you should try to use the least amount of paint possible. As you can see with my first picture the light does not glow through, it still looks nice though. You will also see the stringy stuff you missed so grab those tweezers again and pick them off.
9. After that is dry you will have a very realistic looking candle, but to add more magic and detail take your golden yellow paint and using a small brush paint in the corners, or anywhere there is shadows to exaggerate the shadows.

Exaggerated shadows

10. Turn on tea light, insert, and enjoy!

Comment if you have any other suggestions on how to create a great candle!