Shirlee

Thank you for all the suggestions! I will look into them all : ) I'm looking for something smaller than 2" although I am thinking of getting some a bit larger as well ... maybe 4" tall? I did just go to the Van Yulay site now & you are right felixncharlie ... they've got beautiful molds : ) Blessings, Shirlee

I am looking for a gingerbread man tart mold that is plain ... no cute little smiling face or buttons or piped icing design on the little guys. Does anyone know where I can find one? Blessings, Shirlee

First of all, let me apologize for asking so many questions. I am totally new to all of this & feel bad that I'm asking so much & contributing so little However, one of these days perhaps I, too, will be able to help others :smiley2: I am going to make some tarts this afternoon & try my hand at dredging them in a spice mixture. Can I actually put these tarts in my tart burner & melt them, or is this dredging something you do to tarts just "for show?" I really like the look. Blessings, Shirlee

At a local gift shop I have seen some wax ornaments to hang on your Christmas tree that I have fallen in love with. They are somewhat thick ... maybe 1/2"-3/4" ... & look like they have been dredged in spices. They are in various shapes (stars, Santa heads, angels, etc). They have a wire sticking out of the top of them for hanging. How do you get the wire inserted into the ornament without breaking it, not to mention how do you keep the wire in the ornament without it slipping out? I haven't seen any molds but I'm assuming there is not a little place made for you to secure a wire hanger. ??? Blessings, Shirlee

As some of you are aware I am totally new to all of this & don't know much of anything. I have been searching the internet for about a month now because I saw some really neat wax ornaments at a local gift shop that were in various shapes & looked as though they had been dusted with spices. All the shop owner could tell me is that she knew they were made of wax. I assumed they were beeswax because they had an old look about them but then I read where someone had written that beeswax is very soft & you cannot use it for things like hanging ornaments or decorations of any sort. I also read somewhere that you absolutely do not want to use beeswax for tarts. I am confused. I bought 10 pounds of soy made for votives, tarts, & pillars & my first batch of tarts turned out rather well if I do say so myself, but I'd like to use beeswax as well. So ... if I can indeed use beeswax for these things, where can I get the best deal? Blessings, Shirlee

Thanks Michelle! They're there! Blessings, Shirlee

Has anyone ever seen a silicone mold for making tarts that look like jingle bells? I saw some of these tarts for sale & would love to try making them but I haven't seen these molds offered by any supplier that I'm familiar with. I hoping someone here might be able to help? Blessings, Shirlee

Thanks Julia. I didn't even think of needing to let my tarts cure or adding the oil to the melted wax at a specific time. I fear this is going to be a learning process for a long while : ) Blessings, Shirlee

I'm looking for some natural scents, especially spicy scents & a scent that smells like a real Christmas tree. I've purchased some recently, all the same brand, & the pine tree is a bit "fake" smelling if that makes any sense. Can anyone direct me to a supplier of some good natural scents? Blessings, Shirlee

HeavenScentU ... Love your name & your quote : ) Blessings, Shirlee

I definitely thank you all for the tips! I was a little disappointed ... popped the white crows into my tart burner & the scent wasn't very strong at all. In fact, I asked my husband if he could smell anything & he said "not really," so back to the drawing board : ) Thought about putting everything I made yesterday back into the pot & remelting it & then adding more FO but decided that probably isn't a good idea. Next time I will use a bit more FO. The wax I'm using is just something that "looked good" on Etsy. It's a soy wax for pillars, tarts, & votives. That's the name ... "soy wax for pillars, tarts, & votives." I must admit that after reading some of the posts where people have talked about their tarts breaking or flaking or being rough, I feel very fortunate to have found something that does such a nice job on my first attempt. I hope to give things another try today. Maybe I'll decide to get really wild & add some coloring ... lol! Blessings, Shirlee

I can only say that my first attempt at tart making this morning would've made quite a hoot of a video if someone had been filming me. I thought I'd make it easy on myself. I had purchased a simple mold of little circle tarts with a snowflake pattern at the top. No coloring needed. And I had a nice pine-smelling fragrance oil. Perfect. Well, I was given sort of a recipe for my wax & fragrance oil ... .25 oz of fragrance oil for every 4 ounces of wax. So I looked at my mold ... figured it would take just under 2 cups of wax which, math wiz that I am, I figured out to be 8 ounces. So I measured out 8 ounces of wax, put it into my melting pot, & then took an old plastic tablespoon to measure out .5 ounces of fragrance oil. I learned very quickly that .5 ounces of fragrance oil is quite a bit more than a tablespoon can hold. Lost some oil there but did find a little metal measuring cup that worked well for measuring the oil. I had looked at the wax melting instructions here on the site. I couldn't find a cheap pot to use for my boiling pot so got out my stainless steel soup pot as I didn't want to use my Le Creuset stuff. Filled it up a bit with water, put it on the stove to boil, & dug out a cookie cutter to put at the bottom to rest my melting pot on. The water boiled but wasn't high enough above the cookie cutter so I added a bit more. The water boiled again & I put my melting pot on top of the cookie cutter. It wouldn't stay. It wanted to float around in the water. Nothing I could do but put on a potholder mitt & hold the pot down until the wax melted. I didn't really know what to do next but figured now was the time to add the fragrance. Poured it in, stirred it around with the handle of one of my good wooden spoons (hard to believe there's not a piece of scrap wood or a hunk of stick anywhere around here). Figured I probably didn't have to "cook" it any longer so decided to take the melting pot out & pour my mold. It was not fun getting the pot out of that soup pot without dumping it all over the place but I did manage it. I then looked at what was in the pot & then looked at my mold ... way too much wax. I didn't know if you could "save" wax until the first batch of tarts were cool & popped out of the molds so you could put more wax in so I ran & got every mold I have & poured it all. I've now got little white pine-scented crows & little white pine-scented trees, etc. So ... what I have now is a melting pot with a bunch of wax in it that cooled & adhered to the sides, a wooden spoon handle full of wax from stirring, & some really funky pine-scented things. Everything looks nice & white ... I guess that's a good sign. So ... 1. How do I clean this melting pot? 2. In the future, can I indeed save melted wax until one batch of tarts has cooled & has been popped out of the mold so I can pour another batch at a later time? 3. Any other stupid stuff I did here that needs pointed out to me? I welcome any & all help. As you can see, I really need it! Blessings, Shirlee

Okay ... I'm obviously embarrassing myself with my lack of knowledge about these things :embarasse I'm thinking buying these fixins, mixing them with wax somehow, etc. Duh! Blessings, Shirlee

Oh wow! This sounds exciting! I never gave a thought to makin' fixin's! Are there directions somewhere on how to do this??? Blessings, Shirlee

Thank you everyone! I purchased 10 pounds of soy wax for pillars, tarts, & votives. Hopefully it's the right stuff : ) I want to try using bees wax at some point but was told it's probably too soft for this sort of thing. Blessings, Shirlee

Thanks miniiB! I'm guessing I don't need to warm the cookie cutter slightly but instead kind of "poke" the wax sheet to see if the cookie cutter will easily go through? The wax ornaments I saw at the gift shop actually seemed to have perhaps "melted" a bit on the edges which is what makes me wonder if the person who made them warmed the cookie cutter before cutting through the wax? Blessings, Shirlee

Hello! I'm new to this forum. I live in central Kentucky. I just recently became interested in learning to make wax tarts & ornaments. I thought there'd be nothing to it ... get some wax, get some fragrance, melt it together & pour it in a mold ... but I must admit that at this point I am more than a little concerned! I've been looking over some posts here & it seems a lot more complicated than that! I've bought some wax & I've bought some molds & I've bought some fragrances & I'm thinking "What have I gotten myself into?!?!?" I'm probably jumping the gun here but what got me interested in all of this is mainly some wax ornaments I saw at a gift shop. They appeared to have been cut from cookie cutters & then coated with something that looked kind of like cinnamon or ??? I just fell in love with them! I asked the shop owner if she had any information on how they were made but all she knew was that they were wax. They were totally flat on both sides as if someone maybe put a layer of wax in a cookie sheet with sides on it & then somehow cut out the shapes. Can this be done? Blessings, Shirlee