candle making

It's a while since we made those candles- but they were Christmas presents from the kids for grandparents, aunts and uncles... and then I simply forgot them and found the pictures again today.

It's not so easy to find simple candles here. Mostly they have special scents and cost quite a lot. I remembered that we used to make our own candles with wax leftovers from old candles.

You need:

-       Wax leftovers from old candles

-       Wick (you can get them in long pieces and then cut them yourself or you can buy already cut ones with a metal plate on the bottom)

-       Molds

-       Cans and a pot

We sorted our wax stock according to colours.

We prepared molds from milk cartons (Some I simply left square- but then they were a bit big, so I made triangular ones). Sometimes it was a bit tricky to secure the wick into place.

We filled wax into cans and put the cans into a pot filled with water. We boiled the water and waited until the wax was liquid. The liquid wax we poured into the molds.

You need to wait until one layer cooled until you pour the next layer on top.

You can fill the frame with ice cubes and pour the liquid wax over it- it makes nice candles with lots of "lacy" holes.

You can chop some of the hard wax, fill it into the mold and pour another colour over it- will look nice too (and it's faster- since you will have to make less liquid wax).

We have now a nice stock of candles left at home.

And we keep collecting left overs.

Ice-cube version- we placed a whole candle in the middle because we run out of wick...