Make your own Candles

My daughter loves to give her teachers gifts on holidays.  At Christmas she made a body scrub and for Easter she has decided she wanted to make candles for her school teachers as well as her coaches (voice & softball) and for her brothers also.  We make our own candles so I usually have many supplies on hand in a bin in our basement.  So off she went last night to retrieve it.

When starting your “kit” to keep on hand for making your own candles is the only time you need to purchase quite a few items.  I will list them at the bottom.  Once you have these items on hand you can make candles for a long time only supplying things here and there.  Our candles cost about $1.82 each!!!  And they are scented how we like them!!

Making candles is so easy and such a fun project with your kids as they are excited to know the little candle burning in the kitchen is something they made.  I had to light one after they set up last night as they smelled so good.

Here is our step by step guide:

Choose jars to make the candles in.  I do not buy dollar store jars as I worry about them breaking when heated.  I prefer to get either mason jars or jars from craft stores that are a thicker type glass.  We also recycle many of our glass jars cleaned out that hold food items which is the rounded jar in the picture.  The mason jars in the picture are wedding favor jars and were $.50 each

You can buy wicks that have a sticky bottom.  I suggest these as it’s easy for the kids to stick them in the middle of the jar.  That is what we do first.

Melt the wax stirring quite often.  I buy a large bag of soy wax chips from amazon but you can get them at any craft stores (AC Moore, JoAnn Fabrics, Michaels, Hobby Lobby etc).  This pot is our candle pot.  I have had it for years.  It has a nice handle and you can sit it right on the burner on low heat to melt the wax.  After it melts if you are coloring it, add the colorant.  We used a broken red crayon.  Food coloring does not work very well so I suggest using old broken crayons or you can purchase colored wax chips.

After the wax is melted let it sit off the burner for 15 minutes and then add your scent.  We buy scented oils at the health food store in our area but they have them with the candle making kits in the craft stores.  My daughter made “love scent” which is a fragrant, flowery vanilla scent. It’s important to let the wax cool a little as it will dissipate the scent if too hot.  Don’t be afraid to add to much it should smell strong.  She also made a cinnamon/vanilla scented candle which she melted the crayon in for the red color.

As soon as you fill your jars be sure to wipe out your warm pot with a paper towel so there is no wax or scent left in it.  I have never had to wash mine as I wipe it out immediately and it still looks new!!

Use an old clothes pin after filling the jars to keep the wick centered in the jars

Waiting for them to set (we leave them usually overnight)

Once set trim the wicks to about 1/4 inch. You can close the jar and make cute little labels for them.  We bought stickers and she hand decorated them.

For candles:

candle jars

tin for melting wax or pot with spout

soy wax chips

old crayons

scented oil

stick on wicks

stick on labels

clothes pins

1) stick the wicks into the middle of the jars

2) melt the wax over low heat

3) add colorant or leave cream colored

4) cool for 15 minutes and add scent

5) fill jars and secure wicks in the middle with clothes pins

6) let set up

7) trim wicks and close jars

8) attach the label

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