It's the holiday season, and this year I'm attempting to DIY a lot of my gifts. Weekends and weeknights have been chock full of knitting, crocheting, paper folding, and most recently, candle making. This past weekend I made a pit stop at the Spring Garden flea market (most Saturdays at 4pm) and found a china set with three complete tea cup settings.
Normally I go for the floral, overly-English, vintage tea cup but when I saw these I immediately thought of crafting them into candles for the holiday season. For a sweet deal, I took home the three sets and made a trip to AC Moore to get the rest of what I needed for my project.
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| Not pictured materials: Scissors, Saucepan, Pens, and a Tea Towel |
To begin, I filled a saucepan with water and placed my jar scented candle in the water with the lid off. After putting the heat on high, I brought the water surrounding the candle to a boil and took the heat down just a bit until the candle wax melted down to a liquid.
Once my candle was completely melted down, I took the metal end of the votive wicks and dipped them into the melted wax.
Just a little bit of wax is enough to hold the wick base onto the bottom of the tea cup. Quickly place the metal end in the center of the bottom of the tea cup and press gently until it holds in place. If it doesn't stick, just re-dip the metal end back in the wax and try again.
The next step is filling the tea cup with the melted wax. Wrap a tea towel around the jar candle and carefully remove it from the saucepan. Pour the melted wax from the jar straight into the teacup.
It's less messy to work quickly, but spilling wax isn't a big deal. Leave any spills to dry, and once hardened use a razor blade or a butter knife to lift the wax from the surface.
The wick will likely lean to one side or another, so in order to get your wick straight use something to stabilize it on either side until the wax cools to room temperature. I used two pens across the tea cup and a piece of tape to hold them in place.
The hard part is over! Now just wait for the wax to cool and harden back up. It takes a couple of hours which gave me enough time to snuggle Harry and play a game of kickball. Once it's completely hardened, all that's left to do is trim the wick. Using scissors, trim the wick down to about a half inch above the surface of the candle.
Voila! I love the results of my tea cup candles. They're original, festive, and they smell amazing. As per usual, Harry watched me the entire time I was in the kitchen...I should also mention I was simultaneously making a meaty lasagna. It was probably the cheesy tidbits that fell on the ground that got him to take this photo. I hope you enjoy my tutorial and use it to make an original gift for someone special (or just for you!).
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