It’s so easy to make candles. You just save up candle stubs and wax that you either find at garage sales or buy. I like to buy weird ugly candles at garage sales for like next to nothing… a quarter? Fifty cents? And the bigger the better!
Then go to your local craft store and buy a little bit of candle wick. Yeah, you can make your own, but I find that the commercial stuff is much nicer to burn with and it’s really inexpensive for a little coil of the stuff. I also like to buy a little bottle of scent oil, because I like heavily scented candles and you have to sort of combat the scent mix of junk candles when you make your own. Again, the scent is really not expensive and a little bottle will make many many candles smell beautiful!
I have a little garage sale pan that I use just for my candlecrafting. A little glass or metal pan is fine. All I do it chunk up the dead candles and stubs and pop in the pan.
I try and take out the little left over metal tabs from old candles, either by breaking the candles or using a knife to carve them out. And don’t include any labels or embedded things in this pan.
Pop the pan in a low heat oven, like about 200 or 220 degrees. And then just let it slowly melt the wax. Keep an eye on it, it shouldn’t burn or smoke, just slowly melt and heat up your kitchen with a lovely smell. If you chunk up the wax, break it into pieces, it shouldn’t take long to melt. When I do it, it seems like it takes about an hour or so.
When it’s done, just get some sort of simple straight sided glass vessel for your candle. I have a couple that I use over and over. You don’t need a really wide container or you candle will not burn well, it will hollow out and leave a lot of wax on the sides. When you buy your wicks, be sure to see if it’s thick enough for the container you want to use for your candles. They have various sizes for various widths of your containers.
I usually get the pre-cut wicks with the little tab on the bottom because they are super easy to position in the hot wax.
Pour the hot wax into your glass container and wait a little bit for it to cool a bit. Not tooo much… you don’t want the wax to cool and form a skin on the top… just a little to that the wax is thick and then the wick won’t wander about in the hot wax. Straighten your wick and place it into the middle of the container. If you are using just the wicking off a roll, you can use the old pencil trick. Just wrap a little wick around a pencil and measure enough to go down to the bottom of the container. Then just set the pencil on the rim of the glass in the center and it will stay put. I like the little tab wicks… really easy.
Let the candle sit for a few hours. Mostly likely you will see the wax make a little hollow around the wick as it cools and cures. If you were making candles to give away and that bothers you, then heat up a little more and fill that gap. Since my candles are just for me, I don’t bother with that.
I like to let my candles sit overnight to harden and cure nice. Then light them up and enjoy your cheap-o beautiful candles! When I see a candle in the store costing like $5-$10 EACH… I love my 50 cent candles! Actually, I was amazed to find a huge ten pound block of white plain wax at the Savers store last weekend for…. $1.99.
I think I’ll have about oh plenty of fun candles through the winter from that sweet score. Fun stuff. Just mix half of the plain white with a few colored stubs and you’ll have some really nice candles. Heck, the white might be nice as well.
I like using a tall container for my candles, mainly because of my cats wandering about. If you want you can use a milk carton or anything like that, yogurt cups or cottage cheese containers, and make piller type candles too. But I like the glass ones, they are super easy. I have saved a few cool wine bottles to make pretty colored glass containers, but I’m afraid to try this fire and water method to cut the top off!
Maybe some day I will try it…
I used to own a candle making company… I tried… but I didn’t sell hardly any of the candles! Everyone wanted samples and freebies, but in the end, there were just so many people selling candles, that I gave up pretty quick. But they were pretty and I did learn a lot. But I also learned that it’s not that hard to make your own candles! Everyone lse seems to be making candles to sell at crafts and farm markets and such… Here’s a sale shot of my pretty candles… Lonesome Pine Candles…
