Craft an Easter Candle with Kids

April 13, 2011 By

Check out all of my faith-based Easter crafts and recipes for kids here!

Making an Easter candle (also known as a Paschal Candle) to use at home can be a great religious Easter tradition for your family! The ones we made were super easy to do, and I used candles from Dollar Tree, so this project seriously only cost us $1.

Hand-Painted Paschal Candle
Before jumping in, you can read all about how to use Paschal Candles at home during Easter time here. This post has prayers for using while making your candle, when to light it, what symbols to include, helpful links, multiple ways to use your candle, and more. 

Paschal Candles at Home

Supplies Needed To Make Your Paschal Candle:

  • A white pillar candle (ours came from Dollar Tree)
  • A dull pencil or a wooden skewer
  • Red paint
  • Baby wipe or damp paper towel
  • Cloves
  • Toothpick

How To Make Your Scratch/Paint Candle Design

 
These are so much easier to make than it first appears!
Etching and Painting on to Candle
  1. Scratch your design onto the candle with a dull pencil.
  2. Let your kids paint on it however they see fit.
  3. Wipe the candle with a baby wipe.
  4. Your design is complete! 🙂

Easter candles can have all kinds of symbols. It seems they mostly commonly have a cross with the year written around it. We also have a Paschal lamb on the back of ours. Some other things you could try would be an alpha and omega, wheat and grapes… all kinds of stuff really!

 
Paschal Lamb on Candle
 
Also, poke some holes at each end of the cross and one in the middle to insert cloves. I actually had real cloves this year, but last year I didn’t so we just stuck in some grains of brown rice. The cloves are inserted like nails, and there are 5 of them to represent the 5 wounds of Christ.
 
Cloves in Paschal Candle
 
I actually love the color variation this painting technique creates!
 
Paschal Lamb on Candle
 

I was trying to come up with a religious Easter craft to use with my preschool class, and thought that making Paschal candles would be perfect! It went even better than I thought it would! I scratched the design into their candles ahead of time, poked the holes for the cloves, and they took it from there. (We used washable tempera paints).

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Perfect for families! Each month you gain access to printable activity pages, crafts, home altar pieces, and more.
 
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Painting Paschal Candles in a Group
Hand-Painted Paschal Candles
 Didn’t they come out nice? The kids in my class
are only 2 years old!
Hand-Painted Paschal Candles Lineup
 
When to light your Easter Candle at home:
The Catholic church lights the Paschal candle through the whole season of Easter (so from Easter Sunday through Pentecost Sunday), and also at baptisms and funerals. We plan on lighting ours at dinner each night during the Easter season.- all 50 days! 🙂
 
Don’t Miss a Chance to Teach your Kids!
After making your Easter candle, take it to mass and have the priest bless it for you! Also, take them to the front of the church and show them the really big Easter candle there. Easter is almost here! 🙂

Find My Lenten Resources For Kids here

Silly rabbit! Easter is for Jesus!!!

You can find all of my Christ-centered resources for Easter here.

Make it about the lamb, not the bunny!

Filed Under: Candles, Crafts for Kids, Easter, Liturgical Year, My Crafts, Spring

Comments

  1. Susana of Montessori Candy says
    April 13, 2011 at 5:31 pm

    Wow Lacy,
    This seems so easy and inexpensive! This is a grate one for all the kids! The little ones can do something basic, while the older ones can get more intricate with their designs. Thank you for sharing!

  2. isabel says
    April 13, 2011 at 7:21 pm

    esta idea es muy buena y muy sencilla de hacer asta para los mas pequeños gracias

  3. mel says
    April 13, 2011 at 8:52 pm

    Can I just tell you how much I love your inexpensive little crafts? They are the perfect antidote to so many blogs that I read (and love) that have high dollar ideas that I just can't afford. Thank you so much!

  4. Tiny Actions says
    April 14, 2011 at 1:04 pm

    I just love the simplicity of this project. And that my little ones can do it too. Thanks!

  5. Natalie says
    April 14, 2011 at 1:06 pm

    This is fantastic! Thank you so much for a simple craft that will work for all my children (ages 2-10).

  6. Jen says
    April 14, 2011 at 4:59 pm

    Thanks Lacy for another easy craft! I had bought beeswax at the craft store to make a paschal candle but it is too hard to paint the design onto it. This seems so much easier!

    God Bless!
    Jennifer

  7. Anonymous says
    April 15, 2011 at 4:24 am

    We also light our candle when celebrating a family member's Saint's Feast Day. Mary L.

  8. Mary M. says
    April 17, 2011 at 4:03 am

    This is a nice simple idea for the younger crowd to be able to make a Pascal candle. Will have to keep that in mind for an activity for the little ones when we do our group activity to paint larger ones with the older ones.

  9. Jenn says
    April 18, 2011 at 4:02 pm

    Is there a certain paint you use? I was wondering if certain paints might be flammable so if the candle gets to low if it could catch on fire? Or maybe the flame is too far away from the paint?
    Thanks! Love your blog!

  10. Erin says
    April 20, 2011 at 5:40 pm

    How do you poke the holes in it to get the cloves to stay? Last year, I tried using a paper clip (unbent it first) and then heated it up a bit to get it to poke the wax, but the cloves kept falling out until I glued them in place with superglue! Any tips to make it easier?

    Love the idea of painting over the etched design and then wiping it off… the effect looks very nice!

  11. Tari says
    March 30, 2012 at 12:57 pm

    Thank you for the great craft! Did these with our playgroup this week (6yr and under) and had a blast. So easy to adapt to other holidays/celebrations too.

  12. DeeCee says
    April 3, 2012 at 3:23 pm

    Hi! Had to write to thank you for sharing your wonderful, creative ideas! I’ve been a catechist for 20+ years, and it’s so nice to stimble on NEW projects/crafts — helps keep me fresh and my own enthusiasm high!!

    Thanks, and have a Blessed Easter! ((()))

  13. anon says
    April 2, 2014 at 2:40 pm

    I tried making a sample and the paint seemed to all come off with the wipe. Any suggestions? Do I need to make a deeper indentation? Any advice would help. I’d like to do this with my homeschool group Friday

    • Lacy says
      April 2, 2014 at 9:57 pm

      Perhaps you need a deeper indentation, or perhaps your wipe was too thorough. I didn’t have any trouble with it. In any case, do try again because this is a really fun technique! 🙂

  14. Christine says
    April 16, 2014 at 6:40 am

    Thanks for the idea, made this yesterday and my son loved it. Then this morning I found this, http://www.focus.org/blog/posts/an-illustrated-guide-to-the-paschal-candle.html , which fits in so nicely!