OFCILynn

Bruce, I had no idea that I could just do a couple inches of colored wax in water and do the color dips!!! I have never read anywhere doing such a thing!!! Since most of my cut-n-carve candles will be 12" or taller, dont ask, I already have requests for these, I have the 6" x 14 1/2" dipping vats. Here I thought that I would have to have it almost full, just not to the point of overflowing when I dipped!!! This will save me tons of wax. I will have to go try that, just wish my good wax was here!! Thanks SOOOOOOOO much!! I am curious though as to "HOW":shocked2: to keep the wax at the right temp, I know from the water and such but how to keep it at the right temp so it will stick to the dipped candle and remain fluidish for a smooth dip? I dont know how to ask that right, Im sorry. I know from practicing and dipping that if the wax isnt totaly smooth during dips, your candle will not have a smooth dip layer! Make sense? By having the water in the pot/vat like that, will the wax stay somewhat liquidfied enough to do the dips? Boy, I feel really stupid here "trying" to ask this! I just NEVER imagined using water and a little bit of wax to do dips and having never tried it, I just cant imagine HOW to make it work right.............but, I will find a way to make it work, that I assure you! :highfive: I have 150lbs of my cut-n-curl wax coming!!!! Wish I would have known about this before hand but that just means Ill have more wax to "Play" with!!! Thanks again! God Bless, OFCILynn

Oh My Gosh, I never thought of that and had NO idea that people make soap with coffee scents! LOL I will start searching!!!!! Thanks hon!! God Bless, OFCILynn

Very nice candles youve got there. I love that electric blue color!!! I never would have thought before coming to this site about dressing up candles like I have seen done. Yours are a prime example!! God Bless, OFCILynn :highfive:

My Heart goes out to you hon. I pray that you find some way to recover some of those scribbled notes enough to recreate them!! God Bless, OFCILynn:highfive:

Welcome aboard. I am a newbie also and LOVE this site the best of all the sites that I belong to!! You will find a great friendly bunch here with great adivse!! God Bless, OFCILynn:highfive:

Hi, I found your wicks at http://herbalhut.com/Accessories/candle_making_supplies_2.htm Dont know how fast you can get them but they are there! Hope this helps! God Bless, OFCILynn:highfive:

Hello All, Could anyone tell me the best way to work with scented wax that you HAVE to handle so my hands dont have the lingering FO scent? I have washed my hands countless times and they still days later smell of the FO scent! Thank goodness I only have used ONE scent thus far! LOL Handling the candles that I am carving is the way that the transfer of scent is getting on my hands! Any ideas?? I do have some surgical gloves from previous medical needs that I am thinking about trying next time but not sure if they can withstand the warmth of the candles as I carve even though the candles arent all that warm! Suggestions?? Thanks, OFCILynn:yay:

I fully understand and thank you for looking out for the newbies on here to try to help them from spending tons of money wastefully!! When I get the correct cut-n-carve wax in, I will be practicing with uncolored wax and practice dipping my layers smoothly and getting my timing down on my carving. I can always remelt the wax and use it again and again! LOL Even the wicks can be resused, since I need to use wicking for hanging my candle to carve. I will be using oil inserts and tea lites in my cut-n-carve, hense the reason why I will be making tea lites. Working with the WRONG wax that doesnt stick to each layer properly like the cut-n-carve wax does, helps me to "see" how the colors would be if I were to dip into different color vats. I have also gotten some neat cuts doing this since the layers seperate! LOL I am also allergic to alot of scents so my FO's are minimal............also, I dont care for the fruity smells so that also helps to cut down on the FO's! I also have different size star molds so I can make various size cut-n-carve candles. For my first practice ones using the wrong, household candle wax, I was only making 4 1/2" carved candles. Since the layers dont stick well, I am able to melt it all back down, colored layers and all, white and pink thus far, and make a lighter creamy pink color which I then used to make a cane, rose and a few votive and pillar candles to practice with. These are for my personal use and thus far, testing has been great on them. I did add FO's, all the same kind, and again, testing is going good! I have a great hot and cold throw and everything is burning properly. I think I just had beginners luck! LOL With the costs of wax and shipping costs, I promise that I will be doing ALOT of practicing!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks again for your advise and I did NOT take your advise wrong!! I do appreciate you looking out for newbies like myself!! God Bless, OFCILynn:highfive:

There are some great ideas that were given here! Funny, when making candles the other day, I was using the wooden skewers and thought that I had come up with something new! LOL I also use the Metal TURKEY sticks used to tie turkies together with years back. I always held on to those things for something or another and they work great for making wick holes and popping air bubbles. I also use the 3 gallon size containers that bulk ice cream comes in for cooling my candles. It is wide enough even for a can mold and I can adjust the amount of water in the container to either cool shorter pillars or my votives. I also use a large canning pot to use as a cool bath for the large pillars and canes. Since only water and molded candles goes into this pot, I have no fear of using it again for canning. I have found that using a canning jar lifter used for canning is a great tool for lifting HOT filled molds!!!!!!!!!! I had a old, large microwave years ago that stopped working. When we replaced it, I kept the inner glass tray. It is a large tray about 18" across. I place all of my utensils that I am working with on that and since my counter top is white, I can drop my test drops of wax on there to see the final color when it cools. It is also great for transporting a few dozen votives!! I started out doing the double pot method for melting wax using a mini bundt cake pan, its about 2 1/2" across and setting my melting pot on top of that. I filled it with water so it was weighted and set the top pan on top of that. That worked ok till my melting pot became lighter as I took more and more wax out and I had to keep recentering the bundt pan. Tjen I used a turkey roasting pan and lid on my stove with cookie cooling racks on the bottom and then placed my coffee cans and a old fondue pot that I used for melting wax. It allows me plenty of room to add a few different cans and pots to each roasting pan! I have to give myself shots and have found a use for some old syringes that have never been used. I used them to measure my FO. It works great for accurate measurements and drops at a time if need be. I keep the cap on and use a rubber band around the bottle of FO to strap that syring there so I dont use it for another FO. Since I dont have a actual pouring pot yet, I am using small, metal gravy ladles to ladle my wax into votives. I have three different sizes so I can measure the right amount easily. I keep them in the hot water, handles sticking out of course so they stay hot and the wax doesnt cool during the pours. I am using any type of plastic container that I can get my hands on for storing my supplies! Old butter containers, odd plastic containers for sets that are missing lids and such, baggies that I had used to store packaged meat in the freezer, rince out and am using them for my wicks and such. I am just starting out but am using all that I can that I have around the house!! I also started saving all those darn peanuts that are shipped to me in orders along with bubble wrap so I can reuse them for shipping!! Ive been canning alot lately and my children who live all across the country love Moms cooking so I have been sending them care packages and those packing peanuts and bubble wrap come in handy! Ok, thats enough of my two cents worth!! Keep the thrify ideas coming!! God Bless, OFCILynn

Hi all! I am a disabled homemaker so I have ALOT of free time to work on my candles and I have been researching for 3 months before I ever even started drawing up my order supplies. Now that all of my kids are grown and moved out, I have even more free time! My husband and I are renewing our vows for our 20th anniversary at the end of May so I had decided to start making candles for the renewal. I KNOW that I will have to do ALOT of testing and tweaking before I would ever begin to sell a candle. It will be MY name out there and I WONT sell anything that isnt of great quality!! Plus, Im terrified of lawsuits!!!! I know that it will take some time before I start selling my candles. I will be working mainly on my cut-n-carve candles and canes. My grown children are lined up to be testers for me of course! LOL I placed my wax order through Bittercreek North as if you order over 200lbs of anything, you only pay for 100.00 of shipping charges! I thought that this was a great deal, especially since I have to stock up on wax. Those dipping vats sure do take alot of wax to fill so you can dip and carve! Eventually, I want to really get into healing aromatherapy candles of all sorts but that is way down the line. I just want to mainly focus on my cut-n-carve and my canes. I will be sure to let you Mississippi Candlers know if I happen to find a company nearby that we can order wax from if you will please do the same! It seems we are in a "dead" zone for supplies unless we want to have to pay HUGE shipping charges! Htaylorrn & Ms Magnolia>>>>>Where in Mississippi are you both located? I keep trying to get a hold of the Nashville Wax company but their site is still down. In my 94 custom van which is a gas guzzler and gas prices these days, it would cost me over $100.00 on gas prices alone and a 4 1/2 hour drive one way to go pick up my wax but.................If I decided on a HUGE order, then I may just do that if I ever get a chance to order some samples and like them! Ill let you know if ever hear anything! Take care all and God Bless!!! OFCILynn:highfive:

I just got done placing another order, this time for wax. I am just starting out so the expenses are very high!!!! I will be specializing in cut-n-carve and hurricane candles along with votives, pillars, tea lights and tapers. Hmmm pretty much covers MOST of the candle types huh? LOL My DH has NO idea the amount of money that I have already spent so pray that I do a great job and can at least recoup my money back soon and earn a profit or I may be looking for another place to live! LOL He really is supportive but Im sure wouldnt approve of me spending almost 1k on candle supplies!! I was melting down old candles in the house over the weekend and using some of my new molds that I just got in. He was impressed with what I came up with, especially the hand made roses that I made petal by petal. Ill try to get some pictures posted soon. My DH is still on the old fashioned mind set that take some parrafin wax bought at grocery stores, melt a crayon and your good to go!LOL Little did he know! He SAW yesturday when I was experimenting with making my cut-n-carve candles why it is important to use proper waxes!! I made my 6pt. taper our of parrafin wax and then did my dips using the leftover household candles!! Its amazing when you do that and start carving how all of the layers will peel away from each other! It was a GREAT example to show him WHY I need special wax!! I KNEW that it wouldnt work but wanted to test out some molds, colors and practice my "dipping" !LOL I had fun and my kitchen smells like gardinia now so its all good! LOL I am so very addicted and if I could have driven at least 8 hours away to pick up wax, which my husband suggested that I do to save shipping costs till he found out how far the nearest supplier was to me, believe me, I would have, just so I didnt have to wait!! I live in the North Mississippi/Tn/Al border of the state of Ms. Trying to find the wax for what I need is very hard to do in my area. Maybe I missed a company out there so if you happen to know of where I could get my wax supplies from, let me know. Allabaster did NOT have all of what I needed. I did end up ordering my wax from BitterCreek North. They seemed very nice when I talked to them............just waiting on the order!!! Will let you know. Take care all and God Bless, OFCILynn:highfive:

Hi All. I am curious if anyone has ever used GOLD or preferrably a metalic gold in their candle 4611 wax? I want to use gold in the cut n carve candles but am not sure if it will just look really yellow or if it will really have a Gold look to it! Any opinions or ideas would be welcomed!! Thanks!! God Bless, OFCILynn ofci@ofci.biz

Hi, since I am new to candlemaking.............still waiting on supplies to start, I have no idea IF it is possible to dip decalled candles!! Does anyone know if the sticker decals would melt in a quick dip overlay?? I really do think that your candle came out great hon!!! God Bless, OFCILynn

Hi, The candle looks realy nice hon!! How many times did you dip it for the overlay?? God Bless

Hi!! I just love the colors of the blue ones especially!! Great job hon!!

Hi, Yes, I am becoming more and more aware of the large expense this can be. I will be doing this for personal use and gifts to start out with for quite a while Im sure. I have alot to learn and that can really only be done after continuous research like I have been doing, and doing and doing and doing some more. I make many crafts and I know from those experiances that it takes alot to make a little when doing crafts when getting started especially!! I love candles and can never have enough of them in my home and most of my family likes candles and aromatherapy scents so even if this didnt turn out to be a profitable income opportunity for ME< I will have fun learning and enjoying what I make for us!! I am a perfectionist so I know just that alone is going to cost me some $$$$$! LOL I refuse to think about selling a product that I didnt swear by and stand behind. That will be my name or logo on those products, I wont sell less that the best that I can produce after long trials and errors. I know what I want as a consumer and if I sold my products, I would expect to give that quality and more to my buyers!!! Sooooooo.........for quite a while, this is for me to help make my wedding renewal more special and personable!!!! Thanks all and God Bless, OFCILynn ofci@ofci.biz

Thank you all for your suggestions and advise. The recommended book is on its way already to me from Amazon. Im glad that this is the book that I chose after careful research as it has since been recommended to me after my purchase! Bruce, God Bless you hon for going into a bit more detail for me. From my own research, and PLEASE correct me if I am wrong, I THINK I need to use IGI 1343 wax. Am I correct? I already own a couple Presto pots that I was about to throw out that I just found a new use for! LOL I also have a old time turkey roaster that will be perfect to use. Do you use star shapped tapers or completely make tapers from scratch and build them up to make the complete candle? IF you do use or make your own tapers, and forgive me for probably using the wrong terminology here, I think you understand what I am attempting to say, do you use the same wax to max the shapped tapers/molds as you do to redip to make the carved candle? I am trying to figure out more of some of the starter suppleis that I need to get to work on these before I dish out a major investment and do this "right" as some would say or more professional. I am pretty crafty and know how to improvise but causing fires or hazzards is not something I want to do so I do want to make sure that I start with caution! Bruce, have you even used FO's in your carved candles?? Does the FO weaken the wax too much to work wtih when carving? I hadnt wanted the three hearts for the large unity candle to be intertwined however, I was thinking that if they were stacked on top of one another, the tail ends could maybe be inside of the heart below it!?? Since I am not sure how they are even made, just an idea, I have no idea of what I am talking about, just an observation that I noticed. Even if the hearts werent connected in any way, that is fine. We would just like three carved n' curled hearts on front. Thanks again so much for everyones help!! God Bless, OFCILynn:wave:

Thank you for your response. I am not new to crafting and understand that it will take me a long time to learn the craft of carving candles but it is something that I have always wanted to learn. I figure it this way, if I can learn to make our own unity candle for our anniversary, thats GREAT, if not, Ill be stuck buying one off the internet which are beautiful but not to our specifications. Either way, I will have beautiful candles for our renewal and Ill learn a wonderful craft that I will be advancing in skills for many years to come!! I have already ordered the book that you mentioned before your posting and am awaiting its arrival! Thanks so much!! I have found a few books online but am having a hard time finding any that help teach the cut and curl heart method! Do you happen to know if this book includes that craft? Thanks so much again!! OFCILynn

Hello All. I am new to Candletech.com and am so glad that I found this site! Woohoo for google.com and their search capabilities. I am desperately searching for CARVED candle making instructions. My husband and I are renewing our wedding vows for our 20th wedding anniversary and are having a formal ceremony with unity candles. I have searched everywhere but am unable to find a nice unity carved candle with 3 hearts to help us represent the past, present and future. Thus, I want to make my own!! I will not be learing to carve candles JUST for our renewal as I LOVE candles of all kinds and just adore the carved ones the best. I am a diabled wife/mother and this would be a excellant way for me to earn a extra income for our family also. I live in the North/Eastern part of Mississippi and it is nearly impossible to find supply stores in our area let alone stores that carry the carved candles. If anyone can assist me or direct me to where I can find online instructions without spending thousands of dollars, I would be ever so grateful!! Also, if there are any candle carvers out there that feel that they can make a triple heart candle for me, I would love to talk with you further and you may contact me at ofci@ofci.biz . Thank You ALL, God Bless, OFCILynn