Tutorial for using decal waterslide papers to make pretty Teddy Bea tealights

Right, before we begin, I must warn you that this is VERY, VERY addictive! So make sure you are well stocked up with decal papers lol!

Just a quick tip, before you scan your image, cut it to the size you want by using a circle nestie or similar cutting system, as this will save your precious ink…I, unfortunately, only thought about this afterwards!

You will need the following:

• Decal waterslide papers for inkjet printer – clear or white, I got mine from eBay
  
• Inkjet printer
• A Teddy Bo or Teddy Bea image
  
• 4x Tealights or as many as you like
• Clear acrylic spray paint
• Bowl of water

Now, lets get started:

1. Scan you image, then shrink it to the size for a tealight which is about 4cms.
2. Print out the image in black and white (saving the precious colour ink). This will be your template image for the colour images.

3. To make the most out of the decal paper, cut the decal paper into pieces to just fit over the image, in my case I will need four pieces.

4. Place one piece of decal paper over the template image and stick in place with tape – make sure that the tape is not overlapping where the image will print.

5. Chose your printer settings, I used ‘Photo paper’ and ‘Best’ in COLOUR.
6. Print out your colour image and carefully remove the decal paper
7. Repeat no. 4 to 6 for the amount of tea lights you want to make.
8. Once all your images are printed, carefully place them on a piece of scrap paper and gently tape them down, this prevents them from moving when sprayed with acrylic paint.

9. Make sure you are in a well ventilated place (I went out into the garden), follow the instructions on the can of acrylic spray paint and spray over the images. It took about 10 minutes to dry. Then spray a second time and let them dry, about another 15 minutes.
10. Once the images are dry, use a tea light to trace around on the images and cut them out. Make a hole in the centres for the candle wicks to poke through.

11. In a bowl of water, place the images and make sure that they are totally covered, they will curl up but should flatten out. Leave them in the water for about 10 to 30 seconds.

12. Take them out of the water, careful slide the transfer off the paper and slip the candle wick through the hole and gentle pat around to adhere the transfer to the candle, any overlapping bit just gently press around the sides and leave to dry for about 30 minutes.
13. Once dry, place the tea lights back into their cases and VOILA!!

Beautiful Tealights!!!

Hope you enjoyed my first tutorial and hope you will become as addicted as me!

Next up is a tea light box but that’s another story!! :)

If you would like to see more uses for decal papers with tiles and candles please click here.

There is still time to join in our Teddy Bo 'ALTER SOMETHING' challenge, so why not give these little darlings a go!!

New releases out NOW!

Thank you so much for visiting and leaving your comments! It really makes my day special!!