From David Fisher,
Your Guide to Candle & Soap Making.
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I'm sure you've seen wonderfully interesting candles in specialty stores that have photos affixed to the outside or even embedded into the candle itself and wondered "how do I do that?" Well, it's not as hard as you might think. There are two basic ways to do it.

1. Use a decal
2. Embed the photo into a hurricane shell

The decal method is the easiest, but requires you to affix a Decal made with Candle Decal paper to the side of the candle. Pretty easy...and you can do it on a pillar candle or a hurricane shell.

The other method is more involved, but it doesn't take any special decals, and (in my opinion) looks a lot nicer. For this method, you embed a photo into a hurricane shell that is then illuminated by a votive candle.

This method is based on the Basic Hurricane Candle instructions. Make sure you understand those instructions before trying this variation.

The only thing extra you'll need is a graphic printed on plain white paper (plain white paper works best - it lets the light shine through easily), some tongs, and a chopstick or wooden spoon.

Note: I first saw this paper embedding technique on the great Candle Tech website. It's a great site with lots of cool projects. The project had been contributed by Alan Wallace of one of my favorite candle supply sites, Peak Candle Supply.Check them both out.