DIY Advent Candle Tutorial, with Son 2

Son 2 made a quick DIY Advent Candle for us the other day - I wanted to show you how he made it, although there are many other ways you could do something similar!
We found a battered, old, hand dipped, candle in the candles basket (our home would be the despair of a de-clutterer, but we CAN always find what we need!). Son 2 got down his ‘paint on anything’ pens and his school ruler, and I added in a permanent marker, which I keep well away from the normal colouring equipment! In the past I’ve used non-permanent overhead projector pens, which can also write on candles.
First, make sure your candle is over 24cm long. If it isn’t you’ve got some dividing sums to do!
If it is, just mark off every centimetre for 24 centimetres, using the permanent pen.
Once that’s done, you may need to tidy up the marks to make them even.
Count them and have a think about where you’re going to put the numbers – either above each mark, or next to it. I advise the counting because sometimes I’ve got to the bottom of the candle and realised I’ve run out of marks!
Now you can have fun and decorate the candle any way you like. Just remember that is it going to burn every day of Advent, so all the decorations have to be safe to burn – I should think that some paints might be a bit dangerous, and I’ve seen candle transfers which burn slower than the wax, messing up the counting a bit.
But you can use your imagination!

We once bought an adorable candle like this (yes, of course it’s Fair Trade!), but the really wide candles take a very long time to burn down – longer than the course of your average evening meal, for example. You’d have to keep this one burning all evening to get down to the next mark, and I find that inconvenient, and possibly dangerous, as you should never leave a burning candle unattended (there – I got the safety message in – hope you’re proud of me!).

Thus, if I was buying, I’d go for this charming set from Traidcraft. The candle is just the right width to give you a beautiful, atmospheric light for your Advent evening meals.