Recycled Candles: how-to

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a huge fan of candles and I have always wanted to recycle them. So, today I woke up with a strong urge to make candles…and I did just that! Now I’m sitting here relaxing, candles lit, and attempting to explain the process so you guys can enjoy it as well.

Materials

• WAX (the wax I used was from previous tapered candles, but feel free to use whatever you have)
• waxed wicks (make sure they have metal bottoms)
• pans (you need one larger one and one that rests inside of it)
• something to stir the wax with (I used wooden manicure sticks, but surely there are other options)
• containers for your candles or molds (I chose two teacups I found at a thrift store & an olive jar. You can also use cut water bottles or egg-cartons if you do not want your candles to be encased. However, I won’t be going over that in this DIY.)
• pencils
• tape
• OPTIONAL: concentrated color squares (if you are unsatisfied with the color your wax is turning out to be) and fragrance (just make sure it isn’t flammable, because well…that would just be silly to buy flammable fragrance for a candle, now wouldn’t it?)

Step 1 (optional)

Separate your wax into colors if you want your candles to be a certain color, or if concentrated color squares are not available to you. You can also just throw all sorts of colored wax into the mix and see what colors you come up with. I tried all 3: just white wax, color squares, and a mixture of all the different colors. Honestly, I love all of them. So it’s purely up to you.

Step 2

Prep your containers. Take your wick, making sure the metal piece is pressed into the bottom, and center it. Then you want to take a pencil and place it over your container (refer to image below). Then secure the wick to the horizontal pencil. This is so it doesn’t move around when you’re pouring your wax in.

Step 3

Get your workstation prepared (for the candle pouring). You want to put newspaper, cardboard, or anything to protect the surface you’re working on. Trust me, I definitely spilled my fair share of wax (which I threw back into the pot after it dried and poured it right back into the candle) during this project. Then set up your prepped containers on the protected surface. Obviously, it’s best if this surface happens to be close to the stovetop. Carrying around melted wax across a kitchen does not seem like a good idea to me, so I do not recommend trying it.

Step 4

Take the larger pan and fill it about half way with water. You want the smaller pan to rest upon the water once placed in the larger one. This process could or could not be called “double-boiling.” Either way, it was my first time trying it. And I have to say it was very easy to do, practically the same as just using one pan to boil. Now you want to heat the water to where it begins to boil slightly (VERY slightly). You don’t want it too hot.

Step 5

Choose the assortment of wax you wish to use, and place it in the smaller heated plan. You want to continuously stir the mixture with whichever tool you choose until all of wax has melted and formed a very fluid consistency. (You may have to repeat this a few times to reach the amount of wax you want in your candle.)

Here's the attempted white:

Here are the assorted colors, but if you look to the left you can see the concentrated color block I am about to add (it turned the wax a very dark blue):

Step 6

When all of the wax is melted, you want to CAREFULLY remove the top pan and slowly pour the wax into your container. The teacups didn’t pose any problems, but the olive jar is a different story. Both times I poured wax in it, I spilled…A LOT. So it’s important to have something in between your work surface and candle container. It is also important to work slowly when pouring the wax, this probably would have prevented my little incident.

Step 7

Let them cool off completely before you decide to remove the pencil. The wick still has potential to move around if you aren’t careful, especially if the candle isn’t completely dry and cooled off. Once you have determined the candle is ready, carefully remove the pencils and tape. Then cut off the excess wick.

Step 8

Grab a lighter, sit back, and enjoy your “new” recycled creations!

And just for kicks, here's my olive jar candle. I actually used recycled Yankee Candle wax, so it smells awesome.

I hope the DIY was easy enough to follow. It was a really fun, easy project! Check back in a day or so for the podcast (that I have to do for my class) on this very own project.