Something you may not know about us is that we love candles. If we could spend all of our money on candles, we would—not even being dramatic! But since that’s not realistic, we decided to give candle making a go so we can have new candles whenever we want. Turns out, candle making is super easy and a whole lot of fun. Try making candles once, and you’ll never need to buy another one again!
For this particular project, we wanted to find really cool, unique jars for our candles. Most of the time, that’s what we love most about the candles we purchase (& of course we hope they smell as good as they look)!
Supplies:
–soy wax flakes
–fragrance oils or essential oils
–natural candle wicks
–saucepan
-pencils
-pretty, vintage-looking jars (or whatever unique vessel you find)
Step One: Lay some parchment/wax paper down next to your stove to make cleanup easier
Step Two: Next, you’re going to measure out your wax flakes. A good rule of thumb is to double the volume of each candle jar. Set aside the flakes after you’ve measured them out.
Step Three: Now it’s time to get out the hot glue gun! Glue the metal wick plates to the bottom of each vessel. This really helps your wick stay in place!
Step Four: Next, you need to wrap the excess wick around a pencil and rest it on the opening of the jar.
Step Five: Put your wax flakes in a saucepan and heat the wax on low heat. Stir frequently just until the wax flakes are melted. Remove the pan from heat.
Step Six: Add roughly 10-20 drops of oil per candle to the pan and give it a stir. (The number of drops you’ll need will greatly depend on how strong you’d like the scent to be and the brand of fragrance oil you use.) For our smaller blue jar, we only put 10 drops, but for our larger container, we used 20. Also note that if you use essential oils, you will need to add more than if you use fragrance oils.
Step Seven: Next, pour the melted wax into your jar. For our smaller jars, we used an ice cream scoop to get the wax into the jar since the opening was really small and pouring would have been a mess. It worked like a charm!
Step Eight: Now you’re going to want to let the wax completely cool. This takes 1-4 hours depending on how big your jar is. We like to cool overnight if possible before using. Once the wax is completely cool, trim the wicks to ½”.
We can’t wait to make more candles for our friends and family! They make such perfect gifts, we plan on picking up jars that remind us of our friends and gifting them on their birthdays. They key is to find fun jars that make a great decorative piece in your home. – Britta & Carli Garsow
Credits // Author and Photography: Britta & Carli Garsow. Photos edited with A Beautiful Mess actions.
22 Comments
Great job, Britta and Carli! These are really pretty.
xx- Elsie
Thanks, Elsie! We love how they turned out too!
xx – B&C
Gorgeous photos!
In any soap making or candle making I’ve done in the past, my research has pointed to using a double boiler (or improvising one)- to avoid putting wax in a pan directly over fire. Is this method the safest? Here’s a quick link that shows a couple reasons it’s not recommended:
https://candletech.com/candle-making/wax-melting-instructions/
Agreed, you should ALWAYS use a double boiler when melting waxes or butters. Much safer and it doesn’t damage the wax.
*love* those vintage containers!! Can’t wait to try this!
What’s the best way to wash the wax pot and ice cream scoop?
Candles are my favorite tabletop home decor pieces. Even when they aren’t lit I find a sense of calm in having them around! I spend so much money on candles every year and most of the time the ones in adorable jars do not emit fragrance- I am going to have to give this a try! Thanks for sharing, happy crafting!
The end result is so pretty! The marble countertops and serving tray in these pictures are gorgeous too! Where did you get them?
Charmaine Ng | Architecture & Lifestyle Blog
http://charmainenyw.com
I love candle but i hve no idea how to decorate this but this website give me idea thankssssssssssss
Wonderful how easy this is, and I love that you use soy wax!
https://www.makeandmess.com/
Oh, these are so pretty! I’m feeling inspired 🙂
xx Bry Jaimea || https://shortcutecompact.com
That looks like so much fun to do!
These candles are adorable! I love the vintage containers that you used! Will be trying this out soon 🙂
I love the fact that you can customize it to your liking with the different pots and scents. You could also add in food colouring I’m assuming, to change how it looks? Maybe make a ‘marble/tiedye’ version of it?
http://thedianaedition.com
Hello! We make soy wax candles all the time and the only suggestion I’d make is that you can use wax to hold down the wick instead of hot glue which can be a mess. You can buy special wax just for wicks at Michaels or any craft store and it’s really cheap. Plus it makes the burnt down wick easy to remove instead of impossible, meaning you can re-use your container!
Hello Beautiful!
Ive been looking at several candle 101 articles including this one! I want to verify one thing..
The fragrance oils you link to look lovely and are 10mL=0.33oz, I am reading to use 1-2oz per pound of wax. So am I correct in saying 1 lb of wax would take three entire bottles this size of fragrance oil?? (I realize 1lb of wax would make several candles)
Does that seem right? 🙂
Thanks ladies!
Hi Carolyn! We recommend using 10-20 drops per candle, but it really depends on how strong you want the fragrance to be.
I love this! Candle making has been a new hobby for me, but there is nothing like giving a homemade amazing candle as a gift, I love it. And look forward to making this! Thank you!
so nice to see a very nicely laid out post showing how to make candles keep up the good work
Two questions:
Could we make soy candles in metal containers instead of glass? If we’re mailing less apt to get broken we believe.
Can we dye the candles? We wouldn’t want to be stuck with only white. If so what kind of dyes? Food coloring? Thanks.
G. Cloud
hi Gayla yes you can make candles using metal containers instead of glass. Steve @cwmfelinwax
I LOVE your vintage jars. Where did you find the clear blue one? It almost looks like a stemless wine glass! Love it!
When i make soy candles, they either crack or have a air trap… idk what to do… also, I use 10ml fragranve per 100ml wax – i guess i need 2 increase it since I cannot smell it that well