subject: The Artistry of Candle Making [print this page] The Artistry of Candle Making The Artistry of Candle Making
My Grandmother was one of the most influential people in my life. Not just for the life lessons she taught me along the way, but also for her love of the creative world. She brought me into all the aspects of a world in the arts. This is a world that I live in to this day. Some of my fondest memories are of the two of us spending hours in the arts and crafts stores in downtown Helena, Montana. She did it all, from sewing her own clothes, to mosaics, to making playhouses in the basement out of old refrigerator boxes. One Christmas break, I spent two weeks with her, and this is when I learned the candle making craft and the artistic expression that can go along with it.
I had decided that I wanted to make my own presents for my family that year, and my Grandmother was happy to guide me through this endeavour. She said it was to keep me safe, as the thought of a ten year old girl handling hot wax sent shivers down her spine. And while this is very true, that I needed adult supervision, I think that she also was thrilled at the idea of an entire week of candle making.
We started out by using the stumps of old candles. My Grandmother saved all kinds of household items for art projects, and she used a lot of candles, so this first project lasted for a couple of days. We put the candle stumps in piles based on color. She cut the top off of a few cardboard mild cartons, and we proceeded to make rainbow candles. We melted the red candles, secured the wicks, and poured the first layer of color. Once that had dried, we poured the yellow. And so on...until we had our rainbow candles. This took quite a bit of time as we had to wait between the different shades of candle wax, so in the interim we went once again to the arts and crafts store and bought more supplies to make candles from scratch.
Our second batch of artistic candles were created by using milk cartons as well. She called them Lacey Candles, and when they were finished, they did indeed look like lace. Once the wax was melted, the color and the fragrance added she filled up the cartons with ice. When the wax was poured and had dried, the candles did look like small squares of lace.
We then moved on to one of the oldest techniques in candle making, which are the dipped candles. This was a little bit tedious for a ten year old, but now it is one of my favorite ways for making candles. My Grandmother got each of us a twelve inch dowel and cut six pieces of wicks. She tied the wicks to the dowel, and once the wax was melted we began dipping the wicks into the hot wax. After the first dip, she made certain to hold the end of the wicks so that the wax dried straight. In the way too, just as in the first project we worked on, it is possible to make a multi-colored tapered candle. In all, it took us about forty dips of each wick before we had a candle that was an inch around, but again, it was a fun project and relatively simple.
Since those days, I have learned much more about the candle making craft, and just how far you can let your imagination run when working with decorative candle. Now days there are so many more waxes on the market, each one offering their own special attributes...two of my personal favorites now, are soybean wax and beeswax. The possibilities are limitless, that is what my Grandmother taught me during that week of making candles when I was young, and I am realizing more and more as an adult, that my Grandmother was right.
