It is the way a person is made that he can do it infinitelylook at water and fire for a long time - the elements of nature give it strength and peace. In the interior decor, you can use a variety of elements that bring us closer to nature - decorative gardens and fountains, vases with flowers and fireplaces. But, perhaps, candles help us create the most unique atmosphere of coziness and intimacy. If you make candles with your own hands, the interior of your home will be truly unique and individual. It will add notes of warmth and comfort. Original candles made with your own hands can become a universal souvenir, carrying a practical purpose coupled with aesthetic pleasure. In addition, making candles with your own hands takes little time and money, while bringing incredible pleasure to both the one who makes them and the one to whom they are given. Many people like to put candles on shelves and keep them as a souvenir, and someone lights them and enjoys contemplating the living flame for several hours. A scented candle, purchased or made with your own hands, immerses you in a world of bliss and dreams and gives you unforgettable pleasure. By the way, making candles with your own hands can become an exciting hobby. What tools and materials do you need to stock up on for handicrafts? For your first experience of making a candle with your own hands, any available tools will do.
Tools and materials
So, here's what you can do to help with your work:
- pan (in order to create a water bath),
- a vessel (in which you will melt the wax),
- Sticks (one for fixing the wick, and the other for stirring the wax),
- forms for a candle (in the middle of each form it is necessary to make a small hole);
- decorative elements, with which you can decorate your creation.
To make candles with your own hands, you will need the following materials:
- Paper threads made of 100% cotton,
- wax crayons,
- simple household candles or stubs of old candles.
Now we will tell you step by step how to make candles with your own hands. Be patient and use your imagination!
Candle for candles
For the production of wax, paraffin or evenA gel candle will definitely need a wick. It can be made from any cotton thread that does not contain synthetic impurities. Candles with colored floss threads as a wick look very original. The ideal wick is determined individually in each case. Its texture and thickness depend on the thickness of the part of the candle that is intended to burn out. For example, some decorative candles are partly made of flammable materials, and only the core burns out. If you are casting a candle from wax, you should take thick threads and not weave them too tightly. For paraffin and gel candles, you need to use thin, tightly intertwined threads so that the wick does not smoke when burning. Remember one more detail: when painting a candle with wax crayons, small shavings may not dissolve in wax or paraffin, clogging the wick. There are many such nuances in the work, so each time you need to select a certain type of wick by trial and error. A wick that is too thick will cause the candle to melt excessively and produce soot. A wick that is too thin will go out over and over again. The wick for a wax or paraffin candle can be braided, twisted into a string, or crocheted. It is better if you soak the thread in wax before pouring it into the candle, but some people combine these two processes.
Shape for candles
For making paraffin and wax candlesA wide variety of plastic and metal forms will do. These can be tin cans, cookie cutters, candy and yogurt packaging, cream jars, as well as glasses and cups that can withstand heating up to 100 ° C. The choice of form is limited only by your imagination. If desired, even a milk tetra pack can be used as a form. For your first experience of making candles, you can take the simplest form in the form of a yogurt cup. Remove the paper label - it can catch fire, and the candle in the cup will cool faster and more evenly. Exactly in the middle of the bottom of the cup, we make a hole with a thick needle and insert the finished wick into it, securing it on the outside with a knot. The top of the candle will be at the place of the knot, since the pouring will occur "upside down", and the knot will reduce the leakage of paraffin, wax or stearin through the hole in the bottom of the cup. Then place any stick across the glass - a pencil, a brush, a toothpick. Tie the other end of the wick on it. It should be located strictly in the center in a level vertical position. This way, you will ensure uniform burning and melting. After the material and shavings have completely melted, you can start pouring the candle. Next, take a tin can and slightly flatten it to form a spout - this will make it easier to pour out the melted material. Put candle fragments of the same quality in the can. To make wax or paraffin candles, you can use a ladle or a saucepan for melting, which you do not mind wasting. The container must fit into a saucepan for a double boiler. For work, you can take anything that is convenient for you to use, with the exception of glassware. As you already understood, before making a candle with your own hands, water is boiled in a saucepan, and then a container with wax or paraffin is immersed in it for melting.
Staining of a candle
In order for you to get real onesbeautiful candles with your own hands, they need to be painted. The simplest and most recognized method of painting candles is to use regular children's wax crayons. Most available dyes, such as gouache or watercolor, are made on a water-soluble basis. Such dyes are not suitable for work, since they do not mix with paraffin or wax, float in them as cloudy flakes, and then settle to the bottom. Candles can only be painted and decorated with fat-soluble dyes, which are wax crayons. Some people manage to use eyeshadow and lipstick to decorate candles. Of course, you can use them if you do not mind, and you are ready to spread the aroma of your lipstick throughout the room. When choosing wax crayons, you should opt for softer options. The most beautiful candles are made from mother-of-pearl crayons. Hard crayons are planed and melted with great difficulty. Having chosen the chalk that you will use, we turn it into shavings on a grater or with a knife and pour it into candle stubs, mixing thoroughly with a stick. For coloring candles, there are special pigments on sale in the form of tablets of various colors, which can be mixed with each other, measuring the amount of dye used. As a result of using coloring pigments, you can achieve stunning results - from delicate shades to bright, juicy colors. In short, you can make original decorative candles with your own hands only with the help of various dyes.
Fill the candle
How to make a candle when the wick is ready andmaterial for pouring? The prepared form must be greased with a thin layer of vegetable oil or dishwashing liquid. Both methods work equally well. Fill the bottom of the form with wax and let it harden. It is not recommended to fill the form immediately, otherwise a lot of material will leak out through the hole. It is better to pour wax in layers, and what leaks out through the hole can be sent back for remelting. The completely filled candle must be slowly cooled at room temperature. Do not try to speed up the process by placing the candle in the freezer, otherwise it will spread unevenly. If you are not pouring your candle using the "upside down" method, then you should leave a little wax to fill the depressions near the wick that appear during drying. When the candle temperature equals room temperature, untie the knot at the bottom of the form, and carefully remove the product by pulling the wick. If difficulties arise, you can cut the mold, or put it in the freezer for literally half a minute, and then put it under hot water for a few seconds. Then you need to cut off the excess part of the wick, leaving a tip of one centimeter, and the unsightly seams from the mold can be removed with hot water from the tap. However, with this procedure, the candle becomes cloudy and loses its original shine. Therefore, when making wax candles, choose a mold without seams.
Aroma candles
Knowledge of aromatherapy helps to makeDIY scented candles. To do this, add various essential oils to the wax before pouring. In principle, you can use any oil for an aromatic candle, except rose oil. The smell of rose oil becomes heavy and suffocating during combustion. By the way, regular natural coffee can also be an excellent flavoring agent. You can decorate your candles with your own hands according to the smell of the plant that they will emit during combustion. Green candles are suitable for mint or laurel essential oil, and if you add lavender oil to the candle, it is better to use pink or lilac dyes. Cinnamon or vanilla essential oils will “ask” for warm shades. How to make an aromatic candle? It turns out that it is very easy to achieve the fragrance of a candle. To do this, aromatic oils are added to wax, paraffin or gel. Otherwise, the process of making scented candles is no different. By the way, you can use not only specific smells, but also mix oils, creating a real bouquet of aromas. If you doubt the compatibility of different scents, then use recipes for handmade perfumes. Unless, of course, such recipes include rose oil.
Gel candles with their own hands
To make gel candles with your own handsusually use ready-made gel wax. By the way, recipes for making candles are often given on packages with gel mass. However, you can prepare a base from gelatin and glycerin. To make such a candle, you will need the following components:
- 20 ml of water,
- 2 g of tannin,
- 35 ml of glycerin;
- 5 g of gelatin.
At the beginning of the work, tannin is dissolved in the processheating in 10 ml of glycerin. Then continue heating and mix the composition with the remaining glycerin and gelatin. Add water to the resulting transparent solution and bring the entire mixture to a boil. The temporary turbidity of the solution gradually disappears. Boil the solution until the water has completely evaporated. Pour the resulting mixture into a fireproof glass mold. The candles are transparent and do not spread smoke or odor when burning. If desired, the "body" of the candle can be painted with special dyes. Do-it-yourself gel scented candles are made in the same way as wax candles - essential oil is added to the solution before molding. Decorating gel candles with your own hands is a very exciting process that brings great pleasure. To do this, simply place any decorative elements on the bottom of a transparent container: coffee beans, beads or beads, shells or sea pebbles, dried plants or petals of fresh flowers. Then everything is filled with transparent gel wax. This candle looks very unusual and literally shines through.
Coffee and nautical candles
DIY decorative candlesis also quite simple. But there is nothing simpler than a coffee candle, decorated, as you understand, with coffee beans. To make it, a smaller form is inserted into a fairly large form. Coffee beans are poured into the resulting gap between the walls of the two forms, which are then filled with candle mass. When the mass with coffee beans hardens, the walls are blown with a hot hair dryer. As a result of this manipulation, excess paraffin flows down, and the coffee beans become clearly visible. After the outer layer of the candle with coffee beans is ready, it is put back into the form and filled from the inside with paraffin or wax of a different color. In an identical way, you can make sea candles, in which sea pebbles and shells are used instead of coffee beans. Transparent gel candles with coffee beans or small shells look no less beautiful.
Ideas for decorating candles
Many people are concerned about how to decorate a candle.with your own hands? Firstly, you can use interesting forms for pouring candles and giving them individuality. Glass stands also serve as an excellent element of candle decor. For decoration, you can use special stickers, and if you are proficient in decoupage, you can decorate the candle with regular or special napkins. However, you should follow fire safety rules and use only special varnishes for candles. You can make an absolutely original candle decoration by placing dried flowers, shells, pieces of cinnamon or dried fruit, seeds along the edges of the form before pouring. You can use coffee beans together with beads or rhinestones. Only in this case, the decoration of the finished product is carried out by inserting decorations into slightly melted wax or paraffin. The finished solidified candle can also be pasted over with cinnamon sticks or bamboo, combining them with the same coffee beans or star anise. By the way, such decoration is ideal for aroma candles. Remember that the use of fire-hazardous decor (dried plants or other flammable materials) should be accompanied by the production of a thin wick, so that the candle melts only in the middle. For painting candles, stores sell special outlines and markers that do not burn, but melt together with paraffin and wax, melting together with them during the burning of the wick. For ease of work, you can use not candle stubs, but a special candle gel, paraffin balls or ready-made wicks with a metal holder, which are also available for sale. In stores, you can even find specially developed wax for floating candles. In short, if you wish, you can make not only ordinary candles, but also aromatic, floating, and any decorative ones - coffee, gel or even chic gift items. We wish you success in this wonderful creative process! May the results please you and your loved ones! We advise you to read:
