Candle Kitty

Unless anyone objects, I plan on making several marbles tonight after I wake up. I will take pictures as I do the marbles and then post with instructions. I know my 'structions sound easy, but some people are more visual than others. Anybody mind??

Gorgeous hon!!!

Once you get the initial enigma out of the way when it comes to a technique, it's just a matter of tweaking it for yourself. EB's instructions were fabulous, easy to follow, I just tweaked it since I like using chips more than liquid. I've got a half dozen more scents that call for multiple colors that I'll be working on the next couple of days, there WILL be more marbles to come! Glad everyone enjoyed them, thanks so much for all the great comments!!

I'm going to keep trying to get a better pic of it, in the meantime, yeah, the pic isn't the best. And I'm totally hooked on wolves, my whole front room has them!

Straight paraffin/no additives (IGI-1218)two tsp. of Universal Additive. First time I used the UA and I LOVE it! Never had my white look that good before. That Lavender I used is from Peak's and it suggested only half an ounce per pound and I can vouch for that, the Lavender was STRONG. As for the splotches, I took a piece of melted dye and just placed it where I wanted it inside the mold on top of a small pool of melted wax and then with the heatgun, tapping and slamming, it settled into what you see. Best way to tell you is go with the flow and use your instinct. If you know what spot isn't going to have 'enough dye', melt a piece from the chip and slip it down into the wax and let it do the work for you. Half the fun of the way I do it is slipping dye into a crevice and not knowing what it's going to look like until I unmold it. HTH

And its new home

I was TOTALLY going for mottled, only because I couldn't remember for the life of me what kind of wax I was using. Goofy me didn't write it down before I moved and I figured, if it's straight paraffin with no additives, I'll get mottled. What I got instead, is a rustic mottle on accident. When I split the wax for the layers, I immediately put the dye in both. I had the ivory in a small shallow pie dish, the butterscotch in a pour pot. When I was concentrating on the butterscotch, I more or less forgot about the ivory so when it came time to pour and tilt, that's when I realized I was probably headed for a rustic. It's scented Creamy Praline Pecan and I will be posting the new home for it as well. It'll be in my living room. I even nailed the frosted look for the rustic...and don't know how I did it. Pics are alittle fuzzy, gotta clean my lens on my camera again

BEAUTIFUL!

Soja - Go here http://www.candletech.com/marbled/ it will give you detailed instructions on how to do the marbled candle. It took me roughly 5 months of continuous work to get it down, and I DID change the instructions, only because I use dye chips more than I do the liquid. Use one chip, cut it or break it up into pieces, then melt it with the heatgun. Once the wax is the consistency that EB described, add a small amount to the wax and turn it just a few times, I never turn more than 3 times total. With the Lavender, I actually had it a little harder than the consistency that EB did, only because I wanted more white in it than color. Start putting the wax into the mold, a few tablespoons and make SURE that you slam it down on the counter, it will help pack the wax in, then put just a little bit more, then add another small melted piece directly INTO the mold, put the heatgun on it for just a few seconds, enough that you can see the wax begin to melt, tap it and then repeat the above steps. So it's wax, slam, wax, dye, heatgun, tap. Keep repeating those steps until the mold is full to your satisfaction. It may seem like a little bit of trouble with the dye chips, but they're just as concentrated as the liquid, so putting in a couple of extra steps really isn't that hard, not to mention it gives you a little bit of control, you can place the dye in places that either don't have enough color, or to get the smatters like I do, put it in a pool of melted wax and just let it set so it expands out with the heatgun and tapping. Not to mention, you can control the bigger pockets of air by tapping as you fill the mold, some of my first marbles, the bottoms were beautiful, but the tops were much to be desired. Can't and won't take all the credit for those candles, EB is the one that brought it to the boards. Love her for it, too. I have more people comment on the marbles than anything else that I do, even though I'm now moving into rustics. Leave it to me, find the difficult one first and then move to something not so difficult, although I'm sure the peeps that are attempting rustics may not completely agree with me! HTH and please, post as you go, would love to see them!!

These are my bathroom babies, scented Spiced Cranberry, this scent is DEFINITELY going in my line. The tall one hasn't been levelled or wicked yet, once I got it out of the mold, I came upstairs and started snapping pics. Not entirely happy with the shorter one, but I was in a rush, so I know I missed a step.

I'm scaring myself with this marbling... This is Lavender for a friend who's going to college.

Well, I said I'd post what I did over the weekend, so here they come. First thing is first, the shelf that I used for the pics has a soft bow in the middle, so it may look like the candle isn't level, but it is. First pic is of Buttermint Candies tarts. Made them pastels since the gal that is going to test them for me doesn't own a pastel color one. Thought some feminine colors would do her some good.

Hon, don't knock yourself, those are some beauties!

Stunning work, as usual Bruce. Just absolutely stunning.

That's just gorgeous!

Yeah, the eggnog kind of caught me off guard alittle until I just poured it a while ago for a couple of small pillars. Now I'm wanting eggnog and sugar cookies Like the colors hon, reminds me just how close Christmas really is

I actually vary between waxes, 1218 and 4286. Reason being is sometimes I overshoot how much wax I need for pillars or votives and it's 'oh look, enough for tarts, WOO HOO!' I bought the metal mini-muffin mold (makes 24) and am planning on buying another one. I had someone tell me they look like gumdrops once when I had displayed a pic in the gallery, and they're right, they're TOO cute! The only thing I've goofed on is not priming the metal with release spray and when I get into the zone, I keep forgetting so when they don't pop right out, gotta give the mold a couple of whacks to get them out. Guess that means I've gotta get out of the zone long enough to spray it! I love the metal mold, all of my molds are metal though there are some that say that silicone is fabulous too. Just a matter of experience and experimentation, but I vote for the metal mold!

There's a lot of things, actually, but without a photo, it's actually hard to tell... Could have been caused by tiny air bubbles in the wax that stayed in place. Solution to that is either pouring at a slower pace or giving the side of the mold a few good whacks and watch to see if the bubbles come to the surface. Might also be caused by pouring too cool. Solution would be to pour around 180-190* for pillars, pour slow and tilt the mold at an angle while you pour. I do that and have never had pin hole problems. Another could be the mold too cool. Warm it up in the oven or the heatgun. Or the infamous, wax too hot, mold too cool. Again, warm that mold up! Another could be humidity, but given this time of year, that's a big 'if' only because different regions are experiencing different levels of humidity. So far, I've been lucky in that department and I've taken measures that if humidity starts causing me issues, I'll be investing in a de-humidifier. Given it's supposed to rain the next couple of days, I'm actually going to pour during those times to see if it'll make a difference or not. I just moved into a house, work in the basement, so I'm not really sure at this stage. Only way to find out is pour during high humidity. Something else to consider is the possibility of the molds themselves. If they're aluminum, first pours sometimes get the pinholes, but the second pour always ends up flawless. Pin holes are just as much of an enigma for most candle makers as fingernailing. If you cruise up and down the boards, if it's not fingernailing, it's pin holes and vice versa. I hate to be the one giving about a bazillion different reasons for pinholes and I'm sure that if I miss one, or I'm wrong about one, someone will pipe up, that's why this community is fabulous. We always do our best to help. HTH

Best way to get rid of the rust is to squirt some WD-40 on the rust and let it sit for a while and then wipe it out, the rust goes with it and it also protects the metal from further rusting. It's the horror of metal candle molds, I just had to do that with my votive cups unfortunately, I guess there was moisture somewhere close when they were packed up for the move. They're all clean now and it takes time to get every single speck of rust off, but it's worth it. HTH

I've been a long time candle freak. Ever since I was around 14, I've always burned candles. My sisters give me a hard time because when I get in a major candle mood, it looks like I have soft lighting in the house, but in actuality, I have candles in every room going. I have the wall sconces with tea lights, pillars in glass hurricanes, votives in their holders. At one point in time, I've counted at least 30+ candles going, usually designated the room that I'm in the most as my test room for a candle I've made. The thing is this, yeah, that's a lot of candles to burn, but they're no where near curtains, my wall sconces are no where near the ceiling and my pillars and votives are placed correctly, on tables or desks, (some of my larger three wick candles are on the floor, but again, no where near a curtain and always in their correct holders) and I am constantly moving around the house monitoring them. Aside from the occasional cat that gets too close and gets whiskers singed, nothing has happened. And if I feel I have too many going to monitor, I always blow out a few (one night I set my smoke alarm off, glad to know it worked). I haven't begun selling my candles yet, considering that I'm still in a major test mode and I just moved into the house. I will eventually, and one of the things that I constantly work on, is making sure to educate. I'm working and revamping a sheet that will go into explicit detail of how to care for the candle to get the best burn, where to burn, what kind of container to put the votives in, everything. I see the point in going on this massive 'don't light candles' campaign, but in the same sense, this is when we, as candlemakers need to step up and say 'whoa, wait a second, okay, COMMON SENSE YOU MORONS, COMMON SENSE!' This happened a few years ago when there was a major campaign to get rid of gel candles because so many of them were bursting into flames, supposedly during 'normal use'. A friend had the gall to tell me I was stupid for making/burning candles because I was gearing up to start selling candles and I stepped up quick and defended myself and candles. In every case of a candle starting a fire, it's negligence and not using the gray matter, plain and simple. By the time I got done with her, the girl saw my point of view, realized that even SHE was being stupid when it came to candle burning and has since adjusted how she burns them. I say tit for tat. If someone says don't burn candles because they're a safety risk, I say step up and say something about it. It's the only way we're going to be able to educate anybody on the proper use and I don't know, maybe save someone else from watching their house go up in flames because they were being stupid. It won't stop every person from making a mistake, but if we get one person walking away from us going 'holy cow, I've been burning them wrong', that's one less person that will be on the news.

Maybe I'm different, but if someone comes anywhere near me to start preaching about candles and the fact they're unsafe, I jump right back and defend myself. Case in point, last month one of my hub manager's 'catches' me burning one of my tarts in my aroma lamp and goes into this huge schpeel about how that's unsafe and shouldn't be anywhere near the offices because it poses a fire risk (I work at the railroad, the whole damn yard is a fire risk at times!). I'm the only one in the office that burns any kind of candle or tart, so naturally, it all fell on me. Needless to say, I jumped back and told him that we needed to get rid of the microwave then. He looked at me puzzled and I told him that was a fire risk as well because we heat food, coffee, etc. in it and that I'll see to it that it gets removed, and while I was at it, I'd have the furnace, computers and printers removed and he goes bezerk, saying that if a fire happened with any one of those things, it would be because of someone's negligence. I just looked at him for a bit and when the light bulb exploded over his head, I just sweetly smiled and said 'Here Endth the Lesson'. He hasn't said anymore to me about my candle/tart burning since.

I know half of everyone's weekend is gone already, but because of my job, I get three days instead of the traditional two;) ...too bad it's only every other weekend Already had a some Lavender, Buttermint Candies and Spiced Cranberry in my pot, currently waiting for the cranberry to come out of the fridge, dern thing doesn't want to come out of the mold this morning :undecided I'm in my mini-tart mode, made the Buttermint Candies in a variety of pastel colors (my tester is a woman and I've yet to see her wear anything but jeans and t-shirts, the girl needs some feminine colors), part of the Lavender is mini-tarts as well. I'll have pics in the gallery of everything I've done so far this weekend. Let's see, I got my Peak's order on Friday, so coming up with a gameplan for each scent has been kind of hard... Jasmine Gingerbread (oof, in love there) Eggnog (yummy) Banana Nut Bread (drool) Iced Tea Oops, the tea is in my Mr. Coffee Iced Tea pot, got confused for a moment... Experiment weekends are TOO fun.

I'm thinking carved, like the drilled candles. Set up a shell like a hurricane and then carve or drill different shapes, then set the shell back into the mold and then pour the internal candle. That design would actually be easy, though time consuming because of the possibility of cracking the shell unless you use either a low-heat wood burning tool, or heat an xacto knife and then taking care not to go too overboard with the heat. They're beautiful nonetheless. I don't think they're chunks, they're entirely TOO uniform, not to mention that you would have bleeding of the colors. And I've never seen paint that soft before on a candle, not to mention, if you look close, you can see the entire candle is wax, there IS soft bleeding between the colors. That's my opinion, but I swear that's a drilled/carved pattern.

Absolutely STUNNING!!!

I'd like to know that myself, went to put my order in yesterday and thought I'd check into it, saw the prices and considered a case until I saw it was all gone. Aw poo :undecided