D.I.Y- Mason Jar Candle

Hey Guys, 

April here, and i may have gone mental with candles this week!

(My whole window sill may or may not be literally full of candles, much to the despair of my fighter fighting father)

Since i mentioned "twinkling Yankee candle's" in my previous post, its inspired me to try and make my own candles since its cheaper, and lets not forget, more fun. 

This is how i got on, and how to make your own...

I went online and ordered one mason jar, extra long candle wicks and a few blocks of wax, granted the wax colours weren't what i ordered, but i was too excited to giving candle making a go, that i didn't bother going through the hassle of returning it all back to amazon etc.

For this D.I.Y you will need;

• 1x mason Jar
• 1x extra long wick
• 2x blocks of wax
• A non stick, cheap ass sauce pan that you don't mind messing up, and use it to create a Bain-marie/double boiler to melt the wax (click here to learn how to make a double boiler)
• Some sort of jug, to pore the melted wax in to the mason jar
• Some heavy objects to balance the jar against if you want to set your wax on angles

(you may need more double boiler set ups, depending on your pattern you wish to produce and/or colours you want to use)

 [I used 2 double boiler set ups, so i could alternate the colours to make a zig-zag pattern]

(heavy objects)                                                (double boiler)

Instructions for my specific pattern;

• Melt your first whole wax block down (10 mins to fully melt)
• Dunk the end of the candle wick (metal bit) in to the melted wax then place in the bottom of your mason jar, give this 5 mins to set.
• Carefully pore 1/3 of the melted wax in to your mason jar, via a jug (you need to make sure the wax sets at the same angle when using both colours, or the pattern will not look right)
• You can now turn the cooker that's fuelling your double burner off 

(don't worry about the melted wax, it will set in the pan, but can be easily re melted when next needed)

• You must allow plenty of time for each layer to set. I left each layer balanced between my heavy objects for half an hour then gave it a quick session in the freezer (10 mins) to make sure the layer is solid, this is so it can stand the heat of the next layer.
• I then repeated this process 6 times over  until the jar was full to create the middle zig zag effect,.
• Leave the full candle in the freezer for an extra half an hour to fully cool down
• During the setting process, sometime the wax sinks in the middle, if this happens you can fill the hole up with some more melted wax, or ignore it, and once the candles been lit, and melted down a little, the problem solves its self.

 Here's a little time-lapse of the candle!

There we have it, a super cute, inexpensive alternative to a +Yankee Candle , I hope you enjoyed this D.I.Y - AND spoiler, i have something related to this for a Halloween special, stay tuned to find out ;)

Toodlepip xx

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♥

Jam jar no more!

I recently was looking on Pinterest and found a lot of DIY's of jam jars/ mason jars being turned into tea lights and candles. Some really didn't show how to do it, so I thought I would give it a try.

What you will need!

- Newspaper/ some old matt/ cloth or I used a bin bag to protect the floor/work surface.

- Might be worth having a mask to protect yourself from the fumes from the spray paint.

- Protective clothing

- Fabric- lace or mesh will do.

- Sellotape

- Scissors

- Mason Jar/ bottle

- Spray Paint

The first thing to do!

Firstly I washed the labels off the jar and bottle, also made extra sure there was no jam left in there. :)

Once dry, I wrapped the bottle in the fabric mesh and used Sellotape to fasten it- this may have been a mistake afterwards. I think it may have been easier to place the fabric over the bottle and slowly rotate the mesh around the bottle when spray painting. The only issue it could get a little messy.

I placed this outside but a well ventilated area would have worked to. I put a bin bag on the floor as I didn't want to spray paint the floor. This was then left to stand to dry over night.

Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the mason jar but I used the same method. But instead of the mesh I wrapped the tape around it in a pattern I imagined it to be something like this…

This morning I pealed gently off the Sellotape and mesh and got something like this…

  It didn't work the way I planned, I do like the effect the mesh made and the Sellotape was actually water tight, as I thought it may let the paint bleed in. I think a thinner tape may have been better so there was a pattern left in a neater form. Or use maybe string to get more zebra, line effect.

It wasn't an epic fail and the best thing about spray paint with a big scrub it does peel off and so you can start again. 

So please try my method and take my advice and hopefully you will have a better result than this :)

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P.S. I totally forgot to say pop in a tea light once completed to get the final look and effect, or use it to keep you paint brushes in like I will be doing.