Desertrose

They look lovely and I like the lids too!

Well you asked for thoughts.... Gosh, I personally think that although you are obviously a very creative person as a candle maker myself I think the ideas you are putting across to the general public? are extremely unsafe. Safety when it comes to burning candles should be the TOP most priority for any person selling or promoting candles and candle displays. I have looked through your photo's and see SO many potential fire hazards. The ideas are cute and although you say it's your hobby and for photo opportunities, you are giving people very unwise and unsafe ideas about how to burn candles. Honestly I think it's irresponsible. Here I am worrying about a gingham bow on one of our products being a "potential" fire hazard.

Yep, I'm with Richard on this and we were only just talking about this the other day. I'm no expert but I'm sure wine glasses are only designed for cool temperatures - not a flaming Chardonnay or anything.

I make palm wax votives and use the flat based wick pins and I find that when it comes time to get the pins out it can be very tricky. I now heat gun - (just for a few seconds to warm it) the base of the votive and it releases the bottom of the pin FAR more easily. Without doing this I have found that a few of them stick so firmly that a little chunk of the base of the votive can come out with the base of the pin! Not good! By doing this I seem to avoid that annoying little "edge bit" and the bottoms are considerably flatter. You just have to be careful holding the votive while using the heat gun so close to your hand. (I don't have it on the hottest setting)

I think it's gorgeous!

I think Scented has some great advice. It's SO true that fragrances can smell quite different straight out of the bottle compared to when poured in wax and then at times too I've found that the smell is slightly different when burned in a candle or even melted in a melt! I too was afraid of mixing scents at first - just a confidence thing really, and it's only now after quite a few years of working with candles and becoming familiar with all the different scents that I am now quite happy to experiment with mixing. Plus, reading here on this board and seeing what other people are doing gives me inspiration to sometimes try mixing scents that I'd never think of. Really there are SO many scents out there ALREADY than you need not become overwhelmed by trying to blend your own until you've figured out all the basics with candle making. Good luck, have fun! Sampling new scents is my favourite thing!

We pour leftover wax into tart molds and put them all into brown tin tie bags and call them "mystery bags" - but warn people not to come back and ask for "that lovely red one in the bag I bought last time......"

Looks very professional! Hope you do well! I'd like to add too that you prompted me to pour a whole bunch of clamshells, just because I liked how yours looked

We use both - presto pots AND the double boiler method - the latter being mainly for pouring multiple coloured pillars. We usually only use the pots to melt the wax and do all the colouring and scenting in metal bowls. I ladle the wax out of the pots and there's one thing that I like about this and that's my knowledge that the ladle I use I know will scoop up approximately 100 grams of liquid wax. This comes in handy for me -as a guide, because we've had so many problems with scales (bought so many different types!) so I make sure what the scales are saying match what I'm counting as I ladle and that way I know my scales are behaving themselves! If I lay some baking paper across the area I am ladle -ing any spills can be put back in the pot so there's no wasted wax.

Very striking but elegant at the same time. I like them!

VERY nice indeed ! I love that they look textured. My favourites are the ones in the last picture.

They look REALLY good! Well done!

Thank you all! It's very easy to make these - but time consuming. The technique is basically pouring tilted layers with palm wax at a cooler temperature so that crystals do not form. It's really that simple! Just pick your colours, tilt the molds and off you go. The effect comes from the "spill" as you pour each layer.

I don't know anything at all about wax cupcakes (except they usually make me hungry looking at them). Container wax on top? The icing is container wax? Wouldn't that make it just melt all over the place when lit? Told ja I don't know anything about them As far as looks go. Well yours are making me feel hungry! I suppose I'd try and make the white icing top fit completely over the base. See how your base is exposed round the edges? Just a minor thing though. I think you've done a pretty good job overall!

Thank you everyone for the lovely comments. Just got back from a camping trip and I'm soon going to be up to my armpits in wax making more of these for Christmas!

Just don't try and reuse any jars for food that have had melts in them at any stage. Going on a picnic I was stuck for little containers to put the sugar, tea and coffee in so I grabbed some old jars (that had been thoroughly washed previously mind you) and used them. I didn't detect any odour in them but I forgot to sniff the underside of the lids. Well, I had rather interesting blueberry tea and hubby had raspberry coffee for morning tea that day.

"So, I associate all white/neutral decor with upscale snootiness and I don't understand it at all. It seems very uptight and conformist to me." Just quietly...Me too. lol! I think you have to keep both audiences happy. That's my conclusion anyway.

I just love my colours. When I walk into one of those "all white" shops I feel like if I breathe I'm going to make something dirty or break, but although we've been doing really well with our mainly country style line we are now forced to go with a more "stylish" jar, all white wax and black labels along with white melts to match just so we can get more opportunities for other stores to take our products. My main gripe with all white is that it's sooooooo easy to mix things up in the pouring process and as I'm finding some scents discolour the white wax anyway, which annoys me co's then there's cream candles along with white.

You poke them 4-5 hours after you've poured them? Am I understanding that correctly? They would surely be set by then? I do the relief poking (wrecking, whatever you want to call it ) just as soon as the wax forms a decent crust on it. Probably within 30-45 minutes of pouring the candle. (Just guessing here) The consistency at this point inside the candle is very much like an ice slushy. It's messy but if you're careful wax won't spurt out. I poke around the whole area of the candle and get as close to the edge as I can, which is usually considerably harder than the middle where the slushy bit is. That's just what I do. Maybe others do it differently?

I really don't think they look too bad. Strange though because it looks like there are ever so tiny air spaces on the very bottom there. Are you sure you're "wrecking" the bottoms thoroughly? I do a heck of a lot of poking around with a skewer on my final layer (usually do layered palm pillars) If you do find you have to fill in any holes and get some spill down the bottom of your candle if you gently heat gun it it should tidy it up nicely. The hardest thing I find with the bottoms is getting the darn things level.

Hi Whisper girl. Personally I don't think the scent matches the colours either. Maybe it's just me but unless I'm going for something TOTALLY "out there" - like in the hippie pillars I make, I try to avoid combining too many colours together and try to use graduating shades instead of one colour or at the most two colours and then one or more other graduating colours of those. Maybe it's just me but I always think of whether or not the colour of the candle I'm making will fit in with peoples decor? When I used to buy candles (hmm, long time ago now, lol!) I would tend to buy candles that fitted in with my home decor colour scheme. Maybe I'm a bit weird like that Now you watch, I will probably totally contradict myself and make some outrageous colour schemed candles in the next few weeks, lol!

They are all very eye catching and beautiful!

Hi, you may have already fixed your problem but yes I reckon you could use polymer clay to fix a number of things and no it's not brittle when dry. Only thing is it need to be baked in the oven so you would have to form the piece and bake it then insert and glue (perhaps?) it in. Keep in mind that polymer clay does tend to expand ever so slightly when baked and larger pieces would need more time in the oven.

I like this look. Sort of like granite or marble or something. Very stone like anyway

Very striking. Love how they all look!