Candle Making Craft 4u

Make some egg shaped candles for Easter and let the kids decorate them and make a display.   Read Amy’s comments on how to make Easter egg candles.

Put some candle fragrance in the Easter egg candles and your display will make your room smell beautiful throughout the Easter period.

Easter egg candles do not take a lot of candle wax either so they are quite an economical way to occupy the children with craft hobbies.

If you have a candle making business one type of candle that you are sure to find popular is the taper candle and they are very easy to make by dipping them to create the thickness that you want.  You can either have the candle same color throughout or you can purchase white candles and dip them in colored wax if you prefer to do it this way.

If you are starting from the beginning

Cut your wick 1 inch longer than you require your candle.

Melt your candle wax, color it and use the candle scent that you want.  You will need to find a container that is deep enough for the length of candle that you want.

Hold the wick and dip the candle to coat the wick.  Check to see that there is a 100% coverage of the wick Read the rest of this entry »

Working with candle wax can, as we know, be a dangerous product to work with if not handled correctly.  Candle making is a great hobby but one that does need safety measures.   When you are making your candles don’t wear floppy, very loose clothing as it may catch on a pot handle, spoon handle, on a mold or any other item that is hold hot wax.

Wear clothing that is loose, like a t-shirt, so that if you splash wax on it the shirt will not be clinging to your skin.

Safety with hot wax

On your skin

Immediately run under cold water and put some ice on it as soon as possible to set the wax and cool it, Read the rest of this entry »

Any small home business that sells to the public or has the public visit their premises needs to have public liability insurance.  That includes candle making businesses.

Public liability insurance is to cover accidents and also covers faulty products.  For example reasons that a candle would want coverage for:

• a candle maker may make a candle and for some reason a customer has a fire at home and proves that the candle was faulty and that is why there was a fire started
• at a stall where you were selling candles, a customer caught there foot on a trestle leg, tripped and broke a leg Read the rest of this entry »

When setting yourself up to have a candle making business extend yourself so that you come up with original ideas.  Candle making is so much fun and there are so many ways that you can make original pieces on which to build your candle making business reputation.

Search around, see what other people are doing, explore different ways of making innovative candles and have fun.  Here is a link to see some really cool candle ideas.

One point to remember is to perfect one candle style first before you try another.  You may Read the rest of this entry »

So that a candle has a good burn right through it is important that the wick is straight but that does not happen on its own so you need to take precautions that the wick does stay straight when you have made your candle.  Wind the wick around the stick and it will hold firm.

Here are several items that you can use to secure the wick at the top of the mold:

• on a smaller mold, an ice block stick
• a chop stick
• a pencil with flat sides – a builders pencil Read the rest of this entry »

MAKING MARBLE CANDLES

These can be made with store bought candles and can be so much fun and simple to do.

The idea of this is to end up with a candle that has a marblized finish.  You can make your own plain colored candles or you can simply buy some and start with that.

The basics of this is that you are dipping a one color candle (usually white for best effect) into water that has candle dye floating on top.  Different effects will be achieved depending on your dipping method – straight up and down, twirling around etc.

Here is how to make marble candles: Read the rest of this entry »

Treat your man on Valentine’s Day to a romantic evening with mood creating red shot glass candles made especially by you.  This is not a difficult project so here are the steps:

1.   Search around and find yourself some red candles – one 10” taper candle will do 3 shot glasses.

2.   Buy some wicks from a craft shop.

3.   If you do not have any shot glasses buy some from a shop – possibly your local liquor store would have some or a Bar retail shop.

4.   Break the candles into a metal jug.

5.  Place the slow cooker on a paper covered area (in case of splashes).  Put 1 ½” of boiling water in the bottom of the cooker and turn it on to 3.

6.  Stand the metal jug inside a slow cooker.  Put the lid on.  This will melt the wax and it cannot get overly hot because the water temperature can only reach 212°F.  When the wax is melted turn the cooker off and remove the jug.  It will be hot so use something to protect hands.  Cotton gloves or a cotton cloth should do the trick.

If you want to add a little candle making fragrance, add it before removing from the heat and stir in with the wire whisk.

(If you have not been able to get red candles you could at this stage add some red candle dye and carefully mix it in with a wire whisk.  Candle dye can be purchased from a craft shop or candle supply shop.)

7.  Have your shot glasses sitting on some layers of paper to catch spills and pour the wax into the glasses about ½” from the top.

8.  Measure your wicks and cut them so that they come about ½” above the wax.  As the wax is setting push the wick into the wax and make sure it stands up straight.

9.  When the wax is completely set trim the wick to about ¼” above the wax.

Melting wax in a slow cooker is a slower way of doing it than over a double boiler but it is one of the safest methods for someone who has not made candles before.  As a safety precaution it pays to have a chemical fire extinguisher on hand when melting wax and a wax thermometer.  Wax is a flammable product and this is why a slow cooker is so good because the temperature cannot rise too high.  But with wax there is always an unknown so that is why safety precautions should be taken

Enjoy your romantic evening!  

But hey, remember this same idea could be done with any colored candle and is a lovely way to dress up a dinner table, spa room or what ever you choose.

Candle making molds add variety to your candle making home business projects

Starting a candle making home business is not a very expensive one to set up and that is a great plus when starting a new business.  The equipment needed is not expensive, the products are not expensive but where you can run into some expense is the candle making moulds.

In other blogs we have discussed the benefits of doing market research so that you have a good idea what will sell, but when you start out you may need to limit your range and use some very basic molds to start with.

It is possible to buy cheap glasses and use those for moulds and that way you recoup your cost as you sell the candle or you Read the rest of this entry »

Here is another project that you might enjoy to make for Valentine’s Day.

Foil Candle

Using a pillar or square mold get some colored foil paper, scrunch it up and place it around the wick in the candle mold.  Bring this about 3/4 way up the candle and make sure it is pushed to the sides quite well so that it shows when the candle is set.  Pour the wax into the mold.    Use a skewer and gently manouevre the foil away from the wick so that it keeps burning nicely.

The foil makes a lovely effect as the candle burns down.  To even bring out the effect of the foil more, wrap a strip of foil around the outside of the candle to enhance the color effect.

Set up with a few red petals scattered around, a bottle of wine and have a great evening!

PS  The picture is not a foil candle but one that has little crystals pushed into it which also a lovely effect.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Candle Wax Clean-Up (1-2-3getorganized.blogspot.com)