Today I have a fun craft to share with you which combines my love of recycling and making handmade gifts. I’m getting a head start on my handmade Christmas gifts so if you’re my sister and you’re reading this please look away now!

I really like making candles and thought I would use some vintage tins from my stash to make sweet tin candles with personalised photos.

Equipment you will need to make a personalised tin candle:
assortment of vintage tins
soy candle wax
candle dye
candle wicks
printer
glossy premium photo paper

How to make a personalised tin candle

The first step is to make the candles so I used the same method I had previously used to make my soy teacup candles.

I melted the wax beads in a small dish within a saucepan and a couple of inches of water. Use a dish with a lip if possible as it makes pouring it so much easier. When all the wax had melted I added a small amount of cranberry coloured dye.

I set up my tins and placed a couple of candle wicks in each one, then slowly poured in my melted wax.

Make sure you don’t overfill the tins as mine had small holes at the back for the hinges. A little wax may have escaped but if you clean it up quickly it does’t make too much mess.

Leave your tins to harden then trim the wicks to a reasonable length.

Whilst the wax was cooling I chose two images I wanted to use and created an A4 print in Lightroom and placed the two images on it, re-sizing them to match the dimensions of the two tins. I printed them on my HP ENVY 5530 printer, cut them out and trimmed the corners to fit the lids of the tins, I stuck them in place with a couple of glue dots.

I’m so happy with the result, they’re quirky little gifts but really personal. These would be a fun table decoration for a dinner party too.