Friday, November 17, 2006

Martha Stewart I Am Not

Or how to not follow instructions...

Apparently I mentioned at some point in the past a vague inkling for making candles. The Boy never remembers to empty the dishwasher or pick up milk, but that he remembered... So part of my birthday present was a rather vast ("Top of the Range") candle making kit, complete with Stearic Acid, a column mould and a forty page booklet...

My first project was an attempt to recreate Martha Stewart's rather delicate teacup candles using the batch of four cups I bartered for in Brussels and melting down the droopy stub of a rose scented column candle my mum got me from Bicester Village.

I melted down the candles in a double boiler set up and added TWO SHAVINGS of the red dye from my packet... I think that may have been my rookie mistake...

I set up my wick wrapped around a skewer and set in a wick sustainer in the bottom and poured my melted wax in.



I recalled something about preventing bubbles by putting holes in the top of the setting wax and pouring more in...



I don't think I did it right... Behold the crater candle...



Not quite the vision of delicacy and prettiness I was after...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh I want a go!

Did you see that I blogged about Martha's candles ages ago? Never got round to doing anything about though.

Interesting that there's the candlemaking equivalent of your cake sinking in the middle.

Cally said...

Hi there, thanks for your comment on my blog. Be creative can be a quite a strain at this time of year and other occasions when people are all wanting the most unique gift you can make, and they can be quite competitive, why is why I rarely post what I've made on my blog, the jealous fights over who got a better thing woud be too much!

Your sunken tea cup candles look great, I think it's a fab effect! I usually do mine in layers of 1cm at a time so that it doesn't get air filled, but having seen these I think I'll do it all in one big go next time and hope they sink in the middle :0)

Helen said...

I think you may be mocking, but I can't quite tell!! Perhaps the sunken aspect wouldn't have been so upsetting in a brown 70s retro cup rather than the delicacy that I was aiming for...