You can create a raised, or embossed, pattern on sheet wax and then use the sheet wax to decorate the surface of your candle. All you need is a raised (relief) pattern. It could be anything. For example, I have a wine bottle with a bunch of grapes on it that is perfect for this technique. Once you begin looking around for possibilities you'll find they are abundant. The end result is a sheet of wax with an embossed design on one side, flat on the other.

To make embossed sheet wax, first coat the object with the design with mineral oil or petroleum jelly or pan spray. Then, cover it with silicone caulk. Let the caulk dry thoroughly. Carefully peel it off the original mold. You will have an embossing form. Either press just-made, warm sheets of wax into the mold, or fill it with wax like any other mold. Once you have your embossed wax, adhere it to the surface of the candle with wax glue, or wrap the wax sheet around the candle.

Decorating with Wax Scraps

Remember how, when you were a kid and your mother made piecrust, she would cut the scraps up into leaf or flower shapes to decorate the top of the pie? Maybe your mother didn't do that — but it's a common pastry technique you can transfer to the surface decoration of candles. As we have noted, there are many parallels to cooking and candlemaking. This wax-on-wax method is easy and utilizes bits of wax you have left over from the wax sheets or pots of melted waxes of various colors.

If the scraps have cooled, you can warm them up again with a blow-dryer. When the pieces are pliable enough, you can cut them into interesting shapes — leaves, flowers, stars, half-moons, etc. — and glue these to the candle's surface, using wax glue or simply taking advantage of the malleability of warm wax surfaces (beeswax will stick by itself). With scraps, you can create a vine climbing up the candle, or a spray of flowers with leaves and a stem.

Child's Play

If you have children about, you can let them have strips of wax that they can wind around the candle, making stripes. This is a fun way to let children help make holiday candles — using basic white pillars, you can make pans of colored wax to cut into strips for decorating in the colors appropriate to the holiday. Or make a batch of different colors and let the kids use their imaginations to make striped candles of many colors. Peppermint candy sticks can be simulated with this method by wrapping strips of red around a tall, slim, white pillar candle. As you can easily see, the possibilities are endless.

Kitchen Magic

Using sheet wax, you can cut shapes with cookie cutters and stick them on your candle's surface as described above, with wax glue or with warm wax. Sets of cookie cutters in a multitude of shapes are available at kitchenware departments, or through mail-order catalogs. Depending on the size of your base candle, you can use regular cutters, or you can get mini-cutters, which are great for surface decoration of tapers and smaller pillars and blocks. A heart shape, for example, can be bent to make angel wings. Small heart shapes can be stuck on the candle all over for a romantic effect. Try a red candle with pink hearts, or the reverse.

Cookie cutter cutouts from sheet wax can be lots of fun for decorating your candles, and very easy. You can cover the entire surface of the candle with add-ons, or make one striking addition — like a medallion. Use this method when you have children helping you. They love to cut out the wax and stick the shapes on the candles. So what if some are a little crooked? It only adds to the charm!

Or, if you'd like to combine more than one surface decoration method in a clever way, use paints to decorate the cutouts you have attached to your candles.