Candle Tutorial

I had a few questions after my last post on how to make blackened beeswax candles. In this post I will show you MY version of this process. I'm not saying this is the right way or the only way to do this, just the way that I figured out how to do it. The best part is you can use any old beat up candle for the base. I purchase my beat up candles at garage sales. If they are colored it is fine, as the beeswax will black. The first thing that I do is take them out to the garage and fit the drill press with a circular drill bit. Just make sure that the bit is a little larger than your battery operated tea light that you will be dropping into the hole. You will coat the inside of the hole with blackened beeswax too, so the hole needs to be too big to start with. Char has done this same thing with a drill rather than a drill press. DH has a drill press and I find that it is easier for me so this is how I do it. Find the center of the candle - just eyeball it and start up the drill press.

I do set the depth prior to starting up the press so that the bit stops slightly under the rim of the candle.

Here's the drilled out candle.

Next step, back into the house. Use your favorite method of melting wax. I have an old electric skillet that I pour water into - I'm really just making a double boiler by placing an old tin can in the middle that will hold my wax. I use beeswax that I buy locally and add old broken crayons to it. Dig through all your kids' old crayons and find all the black ones. I'm sure that candle purists would say that this is NOT the thing to use for the color. Well, I'm not a purist I'm a primitive lover and we make do with what we have! The problem with mixing beeswax and crayons is that they have two different melting points. The beeswax will melt first and the crayons will still be sitting in the bottom of the can. Just give it some time and eventually they will melt. Just keep an eye an your water level and add water as needed. Don't let your water get much above a simmer.

I roll the candles in the beeswax. I found this works the best - take an aluminum pie pan - the disposable kind and pour the melted wax/crayon mixture into this. Make sure to stir up the wax and crayons prior to pouring out! Don't pour too much, 1/4" is fine.

Next, just roll each candle slowly in the wax. I usually go around a couple of times. Just get a good thick coat on each candle.

Don't forget to cover the indentation you made with the drill press.

The nice thing about the pie plate is that you can scrape the hardened wax back into the melting pot with a plastic spoon. Keep repeating this process until you have all your candles covered. Drop in a battery operated tea light that you've painted to match and grunge everything up good with a coat of cinnamon.

Here's a finished candle...

Hope this inspires you to create a blackened beeswax candle. ~Ann