Okay, you guys know how much I love candles, it’s like I’m the candle promoter lady. I’m constantly lighting them. I’m always telling you guys to light them. But you know, it just seemed they bring such calm and peace into your world. I love the way they smell, I love the way they look. So, here’s what we’re going to do today—so much fun.
I’ve been doing this forever. We’re going to make candles together. That’s right; we’re going to make our own candles. Do not panic if you’re not crafty stuff, this is so cool and something you can absolutely do. And I’m going to smack some craft mixed down for you because it’s so easy when you’re doing crafts and stuff like that to feel like, “Well, I don’t have all the right equipment or I need to go out and spend and $150 to get all kinds of stuff.” No, no, no, no my loves, listen, I guarantee you probably have almost all of what you need to do this fabulous project and you know, so yeah, you’re going to have to go out and buy some wax or you know, order it online but this is such a cool project and again, something that you can very much personalize for anybody, for yourself, you can make them perfumey and fabulous. You are going to be making candles for years to come.
So let’s just start very, very simply. I’ve got my pan. Now you can use a double boiler if you have one but I realized not everybody has a double boiler so I’m going to show you another really easy way to do this. You’ve got pan, grab a cookie cutter, and then just pop it into the bottom of your pan and then I melt the wax actually in a little pour. Now, if you really get into candle making, there’s all kinds of fancy equipment and stuff like that that you can buy and—go man go, if that’s what you want to do. But you know, this is an Pyrex that I have; it’s literary lost its numbers, so I use this because you know I’ve got it sitting around.
You know I put this in the pan. I’ve got my candy thermometer which works perfectly for this and I would suggest you use this because if wax gets over heated, it gets a little dangerous, a little dangerous, now you don’t want any safety hazards to be going on in your world—safety first. And then of course, I just pour water, the whole point with the double boiler, okay. Is that you don’t really want your water to touch the bottom of your container. You just want the water to heat it and you know, that’s the thing about your cookie cutter, being in the bottom.
So we’re going to get this started and now we’re going to start melting our wax and so here’s the deal with wax, again, you can buy big chunks of wax, you can buy—this is basically, you know, as you guys can see, the wax is already pre-chopped up, isn’t that fancy and wonderful? I’m going to really easy route and you know, it comes in many, many different forms and there are lots of different kinds of wax, as well, you can buy, you know, bees wax which I love the smell, but it’s definitely a little bit expensive so you could buy soy wax which is so eco-friendly, and it’s really made from soy beans which is really cool versus paraffin that you guys could buy which is a petroleum base things. So soy wax is cool because it burns really clean and it burns really slowly, you know, all that fabulous stuff—good for your family. It’s good stuff.
So I’ve got this melting and it’s going to take a little while, so grab your cup of tea and you know go throw a little laundry and whatever it is you do. And then this stuff will melt and I’m looking for this to get to about 200º, that’s it. It doesn’t need to get hotter than that because if it’s too much hotter then it gets all flammable and dangerous and we just don’t need any of that. So I’m going to let it melt, take a sip of my tea and then we’ll kind of keep going here.
So my wax is at a really great point, it’s about 160º which is perfect and now while it’s just sitting there for a minute because you want to kind of bring it up to that temperature and then it can come down just a little a bit because I’ll pour at around a 120º.
You don’t need to get too fancy and specific here; these are just a few points. And then I have some other rally juicy tips for you because I always want you guys to succeed; it’s so important to me that with any project that I’m walking you guys through or trying to inspire you with, that you truly feel like, “okay this is not going to be brain surgery here, I can do this stuff” because I know not, everybody is into like crafty stuff’ but it really is so much fun. It van bring you so much joy.
So you can buy these cool little pre-made wick thing that already have this little thing in the bottom; well I’m sure there’s a name for that thing. And these are pre-coated which is so fancy and perfect, so you don’t have to get you know, too earthy crunchy and be dipping your own wax. And here’s one of my tricks, I just put a little spot of glue on the bottom right and then I run around my house as you guys have seen me do 12,000 other times and I find little containers. And then, I just put the wick right in the bottom of the container and I try to center it, of course. You don’t have to center it, you could do it whatever way you want to or you could put a couple of wicks in. You know you’ve seen like those three wick candles which are cool too. But I center it and then what I do, another little fancy trick is I take a closed pen and then I put it right on here, so that when I’m actually pouring my wax, this little baby stays in place and isn’t moving all over the place because the wax will tend to kind of pull it off to one side, you want it to just stay in middle.
So while my wax is cooling I’m just going to fix a few of these up and look at some of these cute little containers I’ve gathered up, like Siggy made this in kindergarten, how cute is that. So this is a really darling little container for me and sentimentally, you know, I like that stuff. A cute little silver container’s; perfect and you know very interesting. You know try not to choose anything that has too much value to it that God-forbid, you’re burning your candle and it cracks or something, I would feel horribly if that happen.
You know a cute little cordial is really cute and I love the idea of a bowl, you know that’s really darling too, to be able to put, you know, just a low pretty bowl. You can use whatever I have no doubt, because you’re going to be hunting around houses finding all kinds of little goodies to make your own little candles our of it and I also like that this is such a fun little mix of things.
Okay so, you know, your wax is all melted and you’ve got all your little pots and up with you, you’re little clips, your little close pins and everything. Now here’s another couple of little fun things that you can do with these. You can add stuff to them which makes it just all the more glorious and so I run out to the herb garden and I got some lavender you know it’s not all in bloom or anything like that but I just the love the smell of it so much, it’s so wonderful and pretty so I’ve chopped it all up and I’m going to sprinkle that in. Y0ears ago when I started making these, like when I was, I don’t know, 19 or 20 years old, I was so in the growing herbs which I still am and I would go out and hold pick all their pretty little flowers and everything like that and it make all these wonderful little candles in jelly jars and all these stuff and I’d sprinkle the herbs, I mean they were so beautiful. So think about that until you guys can add, color to these if you want too, another great kid project and then a little fragrance is quite wonderful so you know, I love the lavender smell and since I’m also putting lavender and that’s what I’m going to do. Don’t add your fragrance until after your wax has cooled a little bit.
And here’s the deal with this stuff, again, any crafters you guys has this stuff, this is not like fancy equipment or anything like that, I mean, if you go to the craft store, if you go online, you’ll be able to find, you know all these stuff and then you might end up getting even fancier tools than I have.
So as far as the fragrance goes, I’m just going to put a few drops and I don’t need them to get you know, too wildly fragrant but I just love that light, light scent and you can use, to mix it, you can use, even a plastic spoon or whatever you’ve got around.
And this is about the right temperature for me to pour it and it smells so pretty, you know, it’s just lightly scented and I love that. And then also right now I think I’m actually, no you know what I think I’m going to wait, you could damp this in but I think what I want to do is sprinkle it around the top a little bit like that so you know, play around with it, maybe sometime you want to mix it right in or you might want to sprinkle it around the top. This is one of those projects that is so great for just experimenting less so I’m just going to get this out of the way so we can see each other. Okay, so now your wax is hot so remember, don’t burn yourself and then you know, just pour carefully into your containers.
So now here’s the deal you guys, when you’re pouring your candles and everything like that, don’t worry about a little bit dribbling over the edge or you spill a little bit on the side, who cares? It’s a beautiful home-made candle, that will make it even more wonderful and precious and you know, again, this isn’t about you know, pristine perfection of anything like that; these are just a cool fun project and you know that will make it, you know, a little bit more stress-free too because this is really a beautiful relaxing project.
Save a little bit of wax because one of the things that you’ll see that happens to soya candles is sometimes you’ll start to see little holes around the top as they start to cool, so you can save a little wax and do kind of a second pour if you want or if you don’t want to deal with that, then don’t. You can get a hair dryer out later and you can melt the top so it’s all smooth or leaves the holes, who cares, right? They’re your candles.
And now I’m going to take my little herbs and I’m just going to sprinkle them around. The other cool thing about this is, if as your candles dry, you can kind of wax them because of course, they’ll take a little bit of time to dry but another really wonderful thing you could do is as they’re getting really close to dry point, you could drop some little pretty sea shells in on the top right that so time you could put your herbs in, you know. I know you guys have your crazy fancy pants on so you know, however it is that you want to do it, I love the way that these herbs just kind of float in the top and again, if I had mixed them in, maybe I’m just going to leave a few of them without the herbs and just put them in here and there but it’s just so beautiful and just like when I’m doing my cooking shows with you guy, I wish you could smell how glorious this lavenders. You could rosemary, you know, any wonderful little goodies that you guys have—I see this one is tipping over here so I’m just going to stand that up.
So the reason I use the closed pin of course is to keep the—I wan to keep the wicks in place because as the wax dries, it kind of tips over at the edge a little bit so just once in a while, come back, check your candles, make sure everything is looking good and then a few hours later, you are going to have the prettiest candles.
All my candles are all set up and they look so pretty and you know how I was saying to guys that I love how imperfect these candles get. I think actually next time I make these, I’m even going to drip a little bit more under the sides because it’s so cool. You know sometimes when I’m doing that kind of stuff, my hand get s little shaky so just love all the beauty of those imperfections. Look out how cute this one that I did in Siggy’s little pot that he made in kindergarten and drips over the side. Won’t it be cute to have even more drips?
So I just had the share. I’ve created this beautiful tablescape recently and this is where I’m going to plunk my candles. I might set a few aside for gifts and that kind of thing but I made this very nature inspired tablescape, I brought out my conservatory, that’s how yummy and dusty and I purposely have not dusted it, you girls know me. And I put some of John’s antique books in it and I’ve got a little drift wood and some antlers so it’s just so pretty and I thought, a few of these little handmade candles would just add that extra little touch.
So one thing I want you guys to know is it’s always good to when you’re making candles and things like that to cut the wick down to about a quarter of an inch so I always just you know, snip a little bit of it off and then you’d be ready to use them but I think they all turned out so cute and remember you know, you could absolutely put color in these if you want to. When you buy your little candle making stuff, you’ll see there’s just a whole plethora of wonderful little things that you guys will find so, but these are just so adorable and I will light some with you and we can see how charming; I’m going to set this one as like because it has a little top on it for, you know, a really cool little present and this charming little tea cup is so cute and I love this little zen master here and put one back there and look at how darling that one turned out, I love that one. I’ve had this little container forever, you know it’s just so cute and this little cherubs.
So let’s light some of these beauties and I will show you just how very magnificent they are. And you know, this is a project that I know you guys are going to enjoy and hopefully I have, you know, cracked a few of those craft smiths on the head for you guys and not made candle making too difficult of a project for anyone because it really is so much fun and you can get so crafty and creative with it.
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