Script Print Candles

This is a super-simple (or, supposedly super-simple) craft I got off of Pinterest.

For this, I got: three candles ("Fresh Linen" scented), of slightly-varying heights, an ink pad (I suggest getting multi-surface/multi-purpose ink pads), and a stamper with script on it.

Now, the idea is stupidly simple on paper: put ink on stamp, roll candle over stamp, get awesome script. Easy, right? Not so easy when the ink doesn't want to go onto the stamp. I spent God knows how long squeezing and scraping the ink pad onto the stamp pad to get even an iota of ink on it. I didn't help that my ink pad was 1/3 of the stamp pad. I found a series of long presses onto the stamp worked, so long as I was absurdly careful never to overlap or accidentally bump the stamp.

Now, I'm only doing this one-handedly so I could take a (blurry) picture of it. In real life, I held the candle at both ends and rolled it over the stamper. The candle would then be placed off to the side to dry and I would spend another 5 minutes dabbing ink onto the stamp. I did this many, many times with each candle, sometimes going over supposedly stamped sections a second or third time.

Even though they don't look like they did on the internets, I actually love the look I achieved. What started as a pain in my backside ended up as a pretty awesome aesthetic. The uneven ink gives it an old-timey feel, like someone had been scribbling away on them with a quill. This type of project can easily (or not so easily) be done with any type of stamp. In fact, I'll probably try a small flower stamp next time -- anything that actually holds the ink.