Decorated Candles

All you need is...cracker.
Some flowers, leaves, confetti, sequins, beads,You will need a container that is as tall as the
cheap household candles, hot water andcandle and which can hold boiling water. A plastic
greaseproof paper. The flowers, leaves and anyjug would do. Fill the jug with boiling water.
other greenery need to be pressed. To do this,Taking great care, hold your candle at the top or
simply place the flowers and leaves betweenthe wick end, lower the candle parcel into the
sheets of newspaper and put this between thewater so that all the decorations are under the
pages of a big book. Put it somewhere flat andwater line. Hold it there for about 20 seconds.
stack other heavy books of top of it. If a weekTake the candle parcel out and wrap it up in a
they should be pressed enough to work with.towel. Roll the sausage of towel and candle parcel
Take a piece of greaseproof paper, it doesn'tback and forth as if it were a rolling pin. Do this
need to be very wide, just enough to wrapfor about 20 seconds.
around the candle a couple of times.Carefully unwrap the candle from the towel and
Arrange the candle decorations (leaves, flowers,from the greaseproof paper.
beads, confetti, sequins and other bits and bobs)Finally holding the wick, dunk the candle in the hot
on the greaseproof paper. Don't put on too manywater for 5 seconds or so. This smoothes the
and don't overlap them too much. There is onlysurface and applies a thin layer of wax over the
candle wax to stick it to the candle.design to fix it into place. Hold the candle by the
Put the candle on top of the decorations. Roll thewick and give it a minute or so for the wax to
candle up in the paper so that all the decorationscool and harden before setting it down and to not
are in direct contact with the candle. Twist thealter the shape.
ends of the paper to keep the candle tightlyEasy!
wrapped. It will look a bit like a long thin Christmas