Our Christ Candle

Today I want to talk about how we made our 'Christ Candle'. If you click on any of the pictures you will see an enlarged image.

In order to make our Christ Candles the resources we used were a white pillar candle (we made our own out of beeswax hence the yellowish color), Jesse tree symbols, crayons, engraving tools, wood burning tool, acrylic paint and some fine point paint brushes. A helpful tip for those who will be using a store bought candle make sure it is not treated or glazed. We found the exterior glaze would chip off and ruin the engraving.

The purpose of the Christ Candle is to engrave pictures depicting the events that took place in the bible that lead up to the birth of Christ. First, we took the Jesse tree symbols from the book Celebrating the Faith in the Home: Advent and Christmas for the Christian Family, and shrunk them on the computer to fit our candle. Then the girls cut out the symbols, taped them onto the candles and used and engraving tool to out line the symbol onto the candles. After they made the outline, the paper was removed and we engraved the symbols deeper into the candle.

After the girls made their engravings they chose the colors they wanted for their pictures.

Then using a wood burning tool we melted the crayons into the engravings. If any of the melted crayons spilled outside the engravings it was easy to clean up by scraping them away with a finger nail after the wax cooled. After all the engravings were finished being 'colored' I used a fine point paint brush with black acrylic paint to outlined them. This added a nice finishing touch.

Here is a pictures of all the symbols we chose for our Christ candle.

At the top we engraved a picture of a snake - for the fall of Adam and Eve and the ark - for Noah's ark.

stars - Abraham, and an angel - Zachariah and Elizabeth.

lilly flower - Virgin Mary, and a shell with water - John the Baptist. These engravings have not been outlined yet with acrylic paint.

and Chi Rho - Jesus Christ.

The work was time consuming but the reward was well worth the effort. We have thoroughly been enjoying our new prayer candle this Advent season.