The Foolproof Way to Make Poured Teacup Candles

 

I have finally locked down THE foolproof way to make perfect poured candles from any wax type and in any heat-proof container.

The secret weapon is a drill!

Up to now, I'd always been stymied by the process of choosing an appropriately-sized wick for both the wax type and the container dimensions. If your wick is too small, the candle will tunnel, look awful, and eventually just pathetically peter out. If your wick is too large, the candle will burn way too hot, smoke and sputter, and potentially crack the container and set your house on fire.

Neither is ideal.

So, here's the secret: you pour your candle wax into the container of your choosing, just as if you're making the candle, but you DO NOT ADD A WICK.

Let the wax rest for 48 hours, then get a drill and literally drill a hole for the wick directly into the wax. Insert a wick, light it, let the candle burn for an hour, and see how you like it. You can pull the wick out and replace it, drill holes for additional wicks, repour wax over the top of the candle to start over, etc.

There is no way to mess up the entire candle, yay!

I did a lot of wick tests for the poured teacup candles that my Girl Scout troop wanted to make. I wanted a wick size that would work for most sizes of teacups, AND I was really hoping to use the multi-pack of candle wicks that I found at Goodwill for 99 cents, because I'd already spent quite a bit on the beeswax.

Unfortunately, this is what my first wick test looked like:

That's 8 ounces of beeswax, and I don't know what the make and model of the wick is, but clearly it isn't going to be able to keep up with burning through an entire teacup of beeswax.

So I made a couple of changes:

1. I gave up on the idea of a 100% beeswax candle in a teacup. Beeswax burns so hot that I decided that it's just not an appropriate candle wax for a teacup candle, which narrows quite dramatically. I couldn't free myself from the intrusive daydreams of some kid's teacup candle getting too hot, exploding into their face, and then setting their house on fire.
2. I embraced the idea of multiple wicks! Test burning a wick from the Goodwill pack let me measure the diameter of the melt pool, which makes deciding on the number and placement of additional wicks a lot easier.

Here, then, is the foolproof method that I used to make poured teacup candles with teenagers. This tutorial assumes that you already figured out the melt pool you'll get with the wick and waxes you're using. If you don't know that info, do the thing I wrote about above where you pour a wickless candle, then drill a hole into the cured wax, insert a wick, and test it out. With this specific ratio of beeswax to coconut oil, the wax is actually soft enough that you can ditch the drill and just use a sharp bamboo skewer to make the holes for the wick. It SO quick and easy!

1. Melt 8 ounces of beeswax. I used aluminum cans in a crock pot for this, so that when I did the project with my Girl Scout troop, each kid could be in charge of their own can of wax. 

Eight ounces plus the coconut oil, below, was more than most kids needed to fill their teacups, so I had silicon molds on hand that they could pour the excess into. We saved all that awesome wax so we can make more candles someday!

2. Wick the candle. While the beeswax was melting, I showed the kids how to stick the tabbed wicks to the bottoms of their teacups. With this wax blend and the wick size, the melt pool for each wick was 1.5" diameter. I passed out rulers, and the kids figured out for themselves how many wicks they needed to create a full melt pool, and where those wicks should be placed. 

Since we'd be lowering the burn temperature of the beeswax by adding coconut oil, this wick placement is a pretty low-stakes judgment call, so I gave advice when asked, but otherwise let the kids consult with each other and/or figure out where they wanted their wicks to go on their own. Candlemaking is overall a heavily adult-monitored activity, thanks to the safety concerns, so it's nice to let the kids make their own decisions whenever possible.

In the future, though, I will explicitly note that the wicks should be no closer than half that burn diameter to the edge of the teacup. What with placing the wicks on their own and then figuring out how to keep them upright while the wax melted, some wicks ended up pretty close to the wall of the teacup. Not the biggest deal, but it will lead to more smoke and soot than if the wick has enough space to burn cleanly.

2. Add 1/4 cup of coconut oil to the melted wax. I chose to figure out a volume measurement for the coconut oil just to make it easier for a group of teenagers to do while all standing around a table. You could also probably measure out and add the coconut oil to the can at the same time as you measure out the beeswax, but I did all the beeswax measuring before my troop arrived so I could start it melting in the crock pot, and I wanted to leave something for the kids to do.

I had the kids use a pot holder to remove their can of melted wax from the crock pot and put it on their own work space, then measure and pour the coconut oil into the melted wax. I gave them popsicle sticks to stir with.

3. Use popsicle sticks or bamboo skewers to prop the wicks in place. Even if the wicks are primed and stiff, they'll collapse as soon as the hot wax melts their own wax coating. It's better to prop the wicks in place before you pour.

4. Pour the melted wax into the teacups. I encouraged the kids to pour a little at a time, hoping to avoid too much wax shrinkage, but I'm not sure if it made a difference. This step was utter chaos! It's VERY exciting to pour candles, and somebody is definitely going to spill, and everybody is going to have trouble with their wicks shifting. The kids find it thrilling, though, so just go with it.

Here's what it looks like when the wax is poured and starting to set:

The wick placement is really good on those candles! 

5. Trim the wicks, and let the candles set for 48 hours. For bonus points, save the trimmed wicks to make new candles!

I was VERY worried that the candles wouldn't be solid enough for the kids to take them home that day, but another bonus of adulterating beeswax with coconut oil is that the wax solidified much quicker than 100% beeswax would have. 

6. Let the candles burn for at least an hour the first time they're burned. I'm a believer that the first burn is crucial to building a proper melt pool. It probably matters more for some candles than others, but I think that burning a candle for at least an hour that first time gives it a fair shot at establishing a good melt pool.

Here are the candles my kids made, after about an hour of burn time:

You can see the melt pool better with this overhead shot:

The candle on the right is perfect. The middle candle, after a few more burns, did build up to a full melt pool. The candle on the left is still tunneling down that original melt pool, mostly, I think, because the bottom wick is butting up against the wall of the teacup. 

And here's how it looks to have teacup candles in your life!

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Overall, I think this was a decently teenager-friendly project, and I'm satisfied that this is about the most foolproof method around for pouring teacup candles. The kids talked about making candles for holiday presents, so we might revisit this in a few months. Otherwise, I'm thinking that sand candles could be a fun project for a camping trip!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, dog-walking mishaps, road trips, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

The Goal is No Girls Injured: Prepping To Lead the Girl Scout Retired Girl Scout Folk Arts IP

 

I DO know what I'm doing. I didn't volunteer willy-nilly to teach seven teenagers how to pour lye into distilled water and molten wax into teacups without a firm base of knowledge.

But dang, there's nothing to make you question your skill set when doing a risky project than volunteering to do that project with seven teenagers! 

There are a couple of reasons why I'm engaging in SO much prep work before I lead this Girl Scout retired Folk Arts IPP that my Girl Scout troop planned. 

1) Left to my own manic devices, I'm not as safe as I ought to be. I run Dremel cut-off wheels centimeters from my radial artery, remove the tips of fingers with craft knives, and I definitely pour both lye into distilled water and molten wax into teacups bare-armed, bare-legged, and barefoot. 

2) Left to my own manic devices, I also veer from the script more often than not and muscle through several iterations of a project to get the desired result. Candle that I poured tunneling? Eh, melt it down, pour it again, and try a different wick. Soap didn't cure properly? Shovel it all in the crockpot to hot-process. 

That's fine for me, because I've got nothing but time and an endless capacity for frustration. But I want these teenagers' projects to work, and work well. They are going to learn the GLORIES of soapmaking, by God, and the ECSTASY that is a properly-wicked, burning-just-to-the-edges-but-no-farther tea cup candle!

So that was my weekend project!

First up, I had Matt (who tested negative for COVID after six days in isolation, so I set him free, which I *think* is okay to do? I guess I'll know when I take my own COVID rapid test in a couple of days!) make his very first batch of cold-process soap, with no information at his disposal other than my verbal instruction. This was great, because I could make note of the tricky parts of the process and the places where I'll need to give specific warnings to the kids (for Pete's sake, don't stick your head OVER the solution of lye and water!!! Why would you even do that?!? It's literally steaming, and I just told you that it's giving off toxic fumes!!!), and I could time about how long the recipe takes to trace. Twenty-five minutes, which is a bit of a yikes, but the kids are all great chit-chatters so I think it will be okay.

Making this batch ahead of time was also good because I can unmold it in front of the kids and show them how to tell if it's cured enough to cut, since they'll be doing that part at home.

On to the flower pressing! I toyed with the idea of having the kids make mini flower presses to carry in their backpacks, something that I, personally, would love the snot out of, but I dunno. Kids' attention spans aren't real long these days, so I kind of doubt that they'd all take to the six-week wait for their pressed flowers. Instead, I hit up the ReStore, found 12 unglazed ceramic tiles for three dollars, and decided to teach the kids how to press flowers in the microwave and send each of them (except for my own kids, who can share) away with their own set of tiles for microwave flower pressing at home. Even a modern teenager has enough attention span to spend one minute microwaving flowers!

And then we can make pretty things with them!

My kids and I loved making these pressed flower bookmarks, and I think my Girl Scout troop would, as well, but a multi-day, multi-step process isn't going to work. These are teenagers--they're going to dump whatever they come home from their Girl Scout troop meeting with on the floor of their bedrooms and not look at it again for three months. If I'm super lucky, they'll be willing to do maybe one more step after that, but definitely not fourteen more steps, some of which require yet more wait time.

So I figured out how to simplify the process!

The grated cheese is not related to the microwave flower pressing...

I'll have to write new tutorials for both the flower pressing and the pressed flower bookmarks, because I feel like I streamlined the process for each of them by quite a bit:

And now I'll have some samples to show the kids!

They will still need to seal them 24 hours after our meeting, but I think I can get away with pouring a tablespoon or so of matte medium into wee zip baggies for them to take home. That should keep the matte medium fresh enough to still be painted on when the bookmarks are discovered on bedroom floors in three months.

The poured candles in teacups was the trickiest project to figure out for kids. Kids will be bringing teacups in different sizes and shapes, and I want them to be able to pour candles that will burn correctly for whatever container they bring.

I got a tip from a candlemaking book once upon a time that the best way to test wick sizing in a non-standard container is to pour the candle into the container without a wick, let it cure, then drill a hole to insert a wick. If the size doesn't work, pull the wick out, re-drill the hole if necessary, and try another wick!

I'm glad that I tried this, because this wick that I tested is a hard nope:

I tried a larger wick size, got another hard nope, and finally decided that I'd never be able to burn a candle the width of a teacup with straight beeswax, so I poured a new candle with a beeswax and coconut oil combination:

Better, but ultimately still a nope! Grr!

Syd had the idea to just multi-wick it, which... success!

The above photo is from about half an hour into the candle's first burn. At an hour's burn time it had reached its maximum melt and made it almost completely to the edges of the cup all around. Normally, you'd want a container candle to burn all the way to the edge, but with the way that a teacup narrows to the bottom, I think this wick size and placement is perfect. I don't want the candle to burn too hot towards the bottom.

Add in a lecture on the biology of honeybees and the chemistry of triglyceride hydrolysis, and that's this Folk Arts meeting all prepped!

Now let's just hope that COVID rapid test comes out the way I want...

Pumpkin+Bear Shop Update: So Many Candles!

The kids and I have apparently been making candles for a decade, which...

Time has been flying in a horrifying way, lately.

Candlemaking is not only something that I can do quite well now (not surprising, since I've apparently got a decade of experience at it!), but something that I've been finding very meditative and comforting lately. I took advantage of my mental renaissance to finally photograph and list in my Pumpkin+Bear shop the many different styles and sizes of candles that I've been making for the past ten years but just never got around to actually selling for money.

Ahh, it feels so good to stop procrastinating!

I now offer just about every size and style of beeswax candle that a person could possibly long for.

Here's a traditional pillar candle, eight inches tall and 1.25" in diameter:

And here's a tapered version in that same size. It's the same 1.25" at the base, but tapers to just .25" at the tip:

And here's my absolute favorite style of that taper candle--it's STRIPEY!!!

I also now sell a miniature version of that stripey taper. It's still 1.25" at the base, but it's only four inches tall:

I also make striped pillars! These have a regular pillar candle at the core, and I cover them with strips of different colors of beeswax.

I also finally offer a third size of my rainbow taper candles. This one, too, is only 4" tall:

And because I already have the holidays on my mind, I made a 4" Christmas tree taper!

I still offer all my old favorites, the Waldorf ring candles and the birthday candles:

But the whole family is just a LOT bigger now!

Shh, don't tell, but that family portrait, above, does show a favorite candle of mine that I still don't sell!

How to Make a Wine Bottle Cloche

I originally published this tutorial on Crafting a Green World.

Even a light wind can ruin your candlelit outdoor dinner. To successfully have a candlelit dinner outdoors (whether you're roughing it or just being romantic), what you need for each candle is a cloche that serves as a windbreak while still letting in oxygen.

Fortunately, that type of cloche is as easy to come by as the wine bottle at your elbow!

This is a super quick and easy project, if you've got the right supplies. You will need:

• empty wine bottle. Feel free to experiment with sizes here, upgrading to growlers or gallon jugs to make larger cloches--a gallon jug cloche is large enough to also shield food from pesky pests.
• permanent marker and measuring tools.
• Dremel with diamond bit cut-off wheel.
• goggles and a dust mask. Safety first!

1. Remove the labels from your wine bottles. If you have plenty of time, you can use my method for cleaning old glass bottles, namely, a hot vinegar soak followed by some gentle scrubbing, to more easily remove the labels from your wine bottles. If you're crunched for time, however, you can get by with warm water, dish soap, a non-abrasive scrubby, and plenty of elbow grease. It sucked, but I got all the labels off of these bottles in less than half an hour:

2. Mark a cutting line on the bottle. All you need to do is cut off the bottom and top of your bottle to make the cloche, but getting a perfectly level line all the way around is annoyingly trickier than it looks. One day I'll buy myself a set of calipers, but until then, wrap a measuring tape around the bottle and adjust it, with the help of a ruler, until it's level:

When the measuring tape is level all the way around, use it to trace a line in Sharpie directly onto the bottle. This will be your cutting line, and whatever of the marker still remains afterward can easily be wiped away with rubbing alcohol or sanded away when you smooth the cloche's edges.

3. Cut the bottom off of each wine bottle using a Dremel with a diamond-bit cutting wheel. There are hundreds of tutorials for bottle cutting online, most of which rely on some sort of method to etch the bottle, then physical force or a temperature change to crack it along the etching line. These methods all fail too often to be worth it. Instead, buy or borrow a Dremel with a diamond-bit cutting wheel, and check out how quick and easy bottle cutting really can be:

See, doesn't that look nice?

You also need to cut the neck off of each wine bottle, or your candle won't get enough oxygen to stay lit. This cutting line doesn't have to be perfect like the bottom line, which determines how straight your cloche stands, so you can just eyeball your Sharpie line. The cut is much quicker, too--yay!

Discard the bottle top and bottom, sand down the edges with regular old sandpaper, and what's left is a useful wine bottle cloche. For the best results, make sure that your candle is shorter than the top edge of the cloche.

Feel free to play around with embellishing your cloche to make a luminary, making decorative cuts to the bottle's top edge, or choosing particular bottle colors for particular effects, etc.

Crafty Book Review: The Scented Candle Workshop

You guys! The most frustrating thing about candlemaking is choosing the correct wick size. It's the most frustrating part of the process because so often you DON'T choose the correct wick size--or at least I don't--and then all your work is wasted on a candle that you're embarrassed to show anyone else because it burns so super wonky.

If you're using one of the popular waxes--soy wax is super popular right now, for instance--you can generally find a lot of information about it online, perhaps even enough info to get you started with the correct wick size right off, but I really like beeswax, which is already a tricky wax for candles, and every batch of beeswax is different and burns a little differently.

The only way I knew how to choose the correct wick size was trial and error, as in I'd make the entire candle with a wick, it'd burn and look crappy, and I'd have to remelt it and try again. Big bummer, and not conducive to much candlemaking.

Then a publicist sent me a review copy of The Scented Candle Workshop, and in it is a type of burn test that I've never seen before, and it's actually quick and efficient, totally doable, and waste-free!

Y'all, I set it up immediately:

My favorite thing about this project is that the authors suggest doing the burn test in a disposable aluminum baking pan. We've got just a few of these kicking around in case I ever get it into my head to make some freezer meals (as if!), and I was happy to sacrifice one to the cause.

Here you can see my burn test just getting started:

I set it up with all of my current wick sizes, even the ones that I already happily use for specific candles. I've got the tiny braided cotton wick that I use for my rolled beeswax birthday candles, the larger braided cotton wick that I use for my rolled beeswax taper candles, an ECO-10 wick, ECO-12 wick, ECO-14 wick, and an unlabeled wick that came with a separate candlemaking kit.

The kids helped me keep track of the candles as we went about our school day:

And when their burns were finished, I had an exact depiction of exactly the diameter of burn I could get from each candle wick! When it was cool, I peeled the beeswax away from the aluminum baking pan (it's now unsuitable for food, but can be used for more candlemaking projects) and stored it until I'm ready to make my next candle.

And now that I've written them down, I know exactly what candle wick that I want to use to make a rainbow beeswax candle in a Mason jar:

Now that I've seen this burn test, I think I'm actually going to change the wick size that I've been using for my upcycled vintage Coca-Cola bottle candles, too. It's amazing the knowledge that proper science can bring!

I have two more projects from The Scented Candle Workshop on my list to try, now that I've got all my wicks sorted. Stay tuned for an emergency candle in an Altoid tin and a Mason jar candle scented with my favorite essential oils!

I was given a free copy of The Scented Candle Workshop, because I can't write about a book unless I've spent an afternoon burning beeswax in a pie tin at its direction!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to random little towns, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

How to Make a Beeswax Candle in an Upcycled Container

You know that I've been obsessed with my found vintage Coca-Cola bottles, right? I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to be happy until I've figured out a hundred ways to upcycle them.

Here's my latest creation, and the project that I'm currently the most excited about:



Why, yes, I DID turn a vintage Coca-Cola bottle into a candle!

Here's the best way to clean your old glass bottles. Cutting, grinding, and polishing the bottle is a whole other skill set that I've been learning, and I'll tell you all about that another time--although I HAVE found the perfect technique for it all, rest assured!--but for now, let's just talk about how to pour a beeswax candle into an upcycled glass or metal container, as that on its own is an awesome skill set to have and it makes an awesome candle.

Here's what you'll need:

• beeswax and a way to heat it (I prefer a crock pot, which is dead simple to find dirt cheap at any thrift store)
• upcycled glass or metal container, such as a Mason or jam jar (I am not responsible for making sure that your container can handle heat--use common sense, Friends!)
• candle wicks. If your candle sucks, it's pretty much always because you used the wrong diameter of candle wick. Wicks have specific diameters for specific diameters of candles, so do your research.
• hot glue gun, hot glue sticks, tape, and a pencil with an eraser.
• heat gun or hair dryer

1. Set up the candle wick in the container. Put a generous amount of hot glue near the end of the wick, then use the eraser end of the pencil to help you push it into the middle of the container and center it at the bottom:

Don't do this immediately before you pour the hot beeswax; the hot glue needs a little time to cure, or it will melt and set your wick free when the melted beeswax hits it. If that happens, put an oven mitt on your hand and just pour the melted beeswax back into the crock pot, ready to start again.

Wrap the wick a few times around the middle of the pencil, which you're going to set on top of the container. Get the wick nice and centered, then tape the free end to the side of the bottle:

Your wick will stay stable and centered, and you won't have to cut it at this step and waste it.

2. Melt the beeswax. If you melt beeswax at too high of a temperature for too long, it will darken, so keep your crock pot on low and turn it off when you no longer need the beeswax.

3. Pour the wax into the candle. I spilled a lot of beeswax before I decided to stop trying to pour around the pencil and just pour into the middle of the container, right over the pencil. You can clean the wax off of the pencil later, or it can just be the pencil that you always use in candlemaking.

I poured a little too much wax into this candle--

--but I did a better job with this bottle after I realized that I should mark a line on the bottle to pour to rather than eyeballing it:

4. Fix your mistakes. Let the beeswax harden, then cut off the wick and check out all the places on your candle that suck. I had a lot of dribbles and spills, and with that Coca-Cola bottle, especially, I had a LOT of air bubbles, especially against the sides of the bottle, messing up the whole look. And I had those marks on the amber bottle candle where my excess wicking was touching the top of the wax.

To fix all of your mistakes, what you do is get out your heat gun or a hairdryer, and remelt the beeswax. Don't point it at just one spot so that you don't crack the container, but melt all around the bottle and at the top so that air trapped against the sides of the bottle can get out, and new wax can flow in from the top. You can even melt more beeswax in the crock pot and pour it over the top, although you'll have to do the heat gun step again after that wax cures, too, probably:

After you've evened out the wax and gotten all the air bubbles out, your candle should look pretty dang awesome! Light it, love it, and don't leave it alone.

P.S. Now that I no longer have Crafting a Green World's Facebook page to handle, I miss the interaction that social media brings. Please come hang out with me at my Craft Knife Facebook page instead! It's fun!

Building Block Candle Holders

I've been brainstorming new crafts to add to my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop, and now I'm experimenting with candle holders!

To begin, I've got these candle holders made from vintage building blocks:

You can probably tell that I used our own candle holders, with our own monograms, as the examples in the photo, but the rest are to be drilled to order in either birthday candle, Waldorf ring candle, or taper candle sizes:

I like the look of the vintage blocks, and as candles come and go, they develop lovely layers of dripped wax to show evidence of their use:

If these work out, I've got more ideas for more types of candle holders--Waldorf rings, tree branch holders, pallet wood holders, and so on.

Now I just need to figure out candle holders that are either dinosaur- or chicken-shaped, and I'll be all set!

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: Luminaries and Luminaries (and Luminaries and Luminaries and Luminaries and...)

a post about the Boo bottle luminaries found in InstaCraft

and a tutorial for luminaries that use tissue paper instead of paint

I have to say that the kids loved making these luminaries. LOVED. THEM. It takes a little more prep work than many of our kids' crafts, since you have to soak the labels off of old glass jars and scrub them clean before they can be used, but seriously, the girls couldn't have been more content working on these, and couldn't be happier watching them glow with candlelight every night. 

I need to do a little more soaking and scrubbing, but I plan to set aside a collection of glass jars, easily accessible, just for at-leisure luminary-making. I'm betting the scraps from our rolled beeswax candles would look pretty amazing here, and I've never tried the watercolor + olive oil luminary craft...