You can personalise mugs.
You can print photographs onto fabric.
You can even make your own temporary tattoos.
But what if you want to put a photograph on a candle?
There’s one fairly obvious problem.
You definitely shouldn’t put the candle through your printer.
Yet personalised candles featuring photographs, names, illustrations and messages are surprisingly popular.
So how are people actually making them?
One solution involves something we’ve talked about quite a lot at Gecko Paper:
waterslide decal paper.
Let’s look at how it works — and one important thing you need to know before you start.
Can You Actually Put a Photo on a Candle?
Yes, you can decorate a suitable candle with a photograph or other printed design.
There are several crafting techniques for doing this, but using printable transfer media allows you to create the design on your computer first.
That opens up considerably more possibilities than just photographs.
You could add:
- Wedding photographs
- Family pictures
- Pet portraits
- Names and dates
- Illustrations
- Quotes
- Christmas artwork
- Birthday designs
- Memorial photographs
And because you’re starting with a digital image, you can resize and edit it before it goes anywhere near the candle.
But How Do You Print Onto a Candle?
You don’t.
At least, not with your normal home printer.
This is something that often causes confusion with printable craft products.
Your printer doesn’t necessarily have to print directly onto the final object.
Instead, you print onto an intermediate material and transfer the design onto the object afterwards.
That’s exactly what inkjet waterslide decal paper is designed to help you do with suitable surfaces.
Print first.
Transfer second.
Suddenly, the fact that your candle won’t fit into the paper tray isn’t much of a problem.
What Is Waterslide Decal Paper?
Waterslide decal paper is a specialist printable material that allows a printed design to be transferred from its backing sheet onto another suitable surface.
After printing and preparing the decal according to the product instructions, the decal is placed in water.
This allows the printed film to separate from its backing so it can be carefully positioned onto the final object.
It’s particularly useful when the thing you want to decorate can’t simply be fed through a printer.
Which, unless you’ve discovered a very unusual printer, includes candles.
Step 1: Choose Your Candle
For this type of project, a smooth-sided pillar-style candle gives you a large, relatively flat area for your design.
Think about the size of the candle before choosing your photograph.
A detailed family photograph containing 14 people probably isn’t going to work particularly well if you shrink it down to the size of a postage stamp.
Simple, clear images tend to be easier to work with.
It’s also worth considering the colour of your candle.
And that’s because of something important about home printers.
Step 2: Think About White vs Clear Waterslide Paper
Most ordinary home printers don’t print white ink.
When your printer produces something that appears white on normal printer paper, it generally hasn’t printed anything in that area.
You’re simply seeing the white paper underneath.
This matters if you’re using clear waterslide decal paper.
Put a clear decal onto a white candle and the candle itself can provide the white background behind your image.
Put the same decal onto a dark candle and the result can look completely different.
Colours may lose their impact and areas that were supposed to appear white can instead show the colour of the candle underneath.
That’s why choosing between clear and white waterslide decal paper matters.
As a general principle, clear paper can work particularly well on suitable white or light backgrounds, while white waterslide paper provides its own white base for designs where the underlying colour shouldn’t show through.
Step 3: Prepare Your Photograph
You don’t need professional graphic-design software for this.
Start with the best-quality version of the photograph you have.
Then:
- Crop away unnecessary background
- Adjust the brightness if required
- Resize it for the candle
- Add text if you want it
- Arrange multiple designs on the sheet to reduce waste
Before using your waterslide paper, there’s another trick we always recommend.
Print the design on ordinary paper first.
Cut it out.
Hold it against the candle.
Does it look too big?
Too small?
Is someone’s face disappearing around the side?
A cheap test print can save wasting a sheet of specialist paper.
Step 4: Print Your Photo
Once you’re happy with the size and positioning, you can print the design onto the appropriate side of your waterslide decal paper.
Follow the instructions for the particular paper and printer you’re using.
This isn’t the moment to think:
“I’m sure it’ll probably be fine.”
Specialist printable media can have different printing, drying and preparation requirements from ordinary paper.
Following the instructions matters.
Step 5: Prepare the Decal
Depending on the waterslide product and printing method you’re using, the printed image may require additional preparation or sealing before it can be placed in water.
Again, follow the instructions supplied with your particular paper rather than assuming every waterslide product works identically.
Once the decal has been correctly prepared and is ready for application, cut around your photograph.
How closely you trim can depend partly on whether you’re using clear or white decal paper.
With clear paper, the surrounding carrier can become much less noticeable against an appropriate background.
With white paper, any white material you leave around the photograph can remain visible.
Step 6: Apply the Decal
Now comes the satisfying bit.
The prepared decal is soaked as directed until it can move away from its backing.
Position it carefully against the candle and slide the backing away while keeping the decal itself in place.
Take your time.
You can then carefully remove excess water and smooth the decal, working gently to avoid wrinkles or trapped air.
Once correctly positioned, leave everything to dry thoroughly according to the product instructions.
And what started as a photograph sitting on your phone is now decorating a candle.
The Important Question: Can You Burn a Candle with a Waterslide Decal on It?
This is where we need to make an important distinction.
Decorating a candle and safely burning a decorated candle are not the same thing.
Candles involve an open flame, heat and combustible materials.
A standard craft transfer shouldn’t automatically be assumed to be safe to burn simply because it can be applied to the outside of a candle.
If a transfer material, coating or other decorative element isn’t specifically rated and instructed for that use, treat the finished item as decorative rather than a candle to be burned.
Never allow an unknown decorative material to reach a flame.
For many personalised candle projects, that isn’t much of a limitation anyway.
A wedding keepsake, memorial candle or photo display may be something you want to preserve rather than burn.
Photo Candles Make Brilliant Personalised Gifts
This is where the idea gets interesting.
A candle on its own is easy to buy.
A candle featuring a photograph that means something to one particular person is completely different.
You could create one using:
A Wedding Photograph
Add the couple’s names and wedding date underneath.
It could become a keepsake long after the wedding itself.
A Favourite Pet Photograph
Anyone who owns a dog or cat already knows there’s virtually no object that can’t be improved by putting their pet’s face on it.
Candles included.
An Old Family Photograph
Scan an old photograph and turn it into a decorative keepsake for parents or grandparents.
Children’s Artwork
It doesn’t even have to be a photograph.
Scan a child’s drawing and suddenly you’ve got artwork for a personalised candle.
A Memorial Photograph
A carefully designed decorative candle featuring a photograph, name and dates can also become a meaningful remembrance item.
You Could Make a Matching Set
Here’s another possibility.
Why stop at one candle?
Create several using:
- Different family photographs
- Pictures from the same wedding
- Photographs of each child
- Different illustrations
- Matching typography
- A sequence of dates or memories
Used together, they can become part of a larger display.
And because you’re printing the designs yourself, you aren’t restricted to ordering multiple copies of exactly the same image.
Every candle could be different.
What Else Can You Put on a Candle?
Once you stop thinking exclusively about photographs, the possibilities become much broader.
You could create decorative candles featuring:
- Botanical illustrations
- Vintage artwork
- House numbers
- Initials
- Monograms
- Seasonal designs
- Business branding
- Decorative patterns
- Handwriting
- Children’s drawings
You could even scan an old handwritten message and incorporate it into the artwork.
That’s one of the great advantages of printable transfer products.
If you can turn something into a suitable digital image, you potentially have the starting point for a physical craft project.
Why Not Just Buy a Personalised Candle?
You absolutely can.
But making one yourself gives you control over the entire design.
You choose the photograph.
You choose the size.
You choose the text.
You choose the layout.
And if you want to make another completely different design five minutes later, you can.
That’s particularly useful for crafters and small businesses producing personalised products in small quantities.
Instead of holding stock containing predetermined designs, you can create artwork for individual projects as you need it.
Your Printer Can Print Onto More Things Than You Think
Not literally, of course.
Please don’t start trying to feed candles into it.
But that’s what makes specialist printable media so useful.
Your printer might only accept flat sheets, but the image it produces doesn’t necessarily have to stay on that sheet.
Using Gecko Paper inkjet waterslide decal paper, artwork can be created on your computer, printed and then transferred onto an appropriate surface.
And that completely changes the question.
Instead of asking:
“Can my printer print onto this?”
You start asking:
“How can I transfer my print onto this?”
A candle is just one surprisingly good example.
Share this:
