Showing posts with label crafts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crafts. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Candle Making for Gifts

After reading an interesting post on Boogiemum about candle making, I finally found the time to do the same project with Little A. I was a little nervous, as I have not made candles before, but it actually turned out to be much easier than I anticipated, mostly because the directions on Boogiemum were so clear and she included pictures.

I started with a pound of Parowax Household wax, which I cut up with my chocolate fork and dumped into an old coffee can. I put this can into another pan that was filled with about 3 inches of water, making a double boiler of sorts. Over medium-low heat, the wax melted. When it was almost done, Little A threw in a green crayon that she had broken up. At the same time, I added some bits from a broken green candle that I found in the candle drawer. Turns out it was a nice candle from Australia, so it provided some lovely fragrance.

After all the wax and crayon bits and broken candle were melted, I poured 1/2 an inch of wax into my mold (an empty fake-o egg container) and nestled in the top of a taper that I purchased on sale at Longs. Then I added a cup full of ice, and more hot wax almost to the top of the taper. Then I let it cool for an hour.

Since I had some melted wax leftover, I also filled a couple silicon muffin cups, adding wicks that I salvaged from the broken candle.

We repeated the whole process again with red crayons and our final result is very Christmassy. I plan to package a red and green candle together for each recipient.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Stack O'Catalogs update

While we were gone, I am sorry to report that we did not have a huge gain in the stack of holiday catalogs. Today, the stack rises to only 5 inches, a gain of 2.

This afternoon, I did a little crafty activity - I made invitations for an upcoming party. The inside was done on the computer, and on the front of each card, I put a little folded origami Christmas tree, each invitation with a different color. I found the instructions here, and this is what it looked like: