BIG mistake

[Bev]

I need to take a refresher course in math! Or pay closer attention to what I'm doing when I'm making candles!!! Last weekend I made some tester candles and decided to try adding 1% beeswax since I use 100% soy. I was so excited to fire them up last night to see how they burned. Imagine my disappointment when they all tunneled down the center and the wicks drowned out. Scratching my head, I just couldn't understand why they did this. So I went back and looked at my notes. I miscalculated my beeswax ... I added 10% instead of 1%. YIKES!!!

I know I'm not the only one who's done something this stupid. Anyone else want to share one of their blunders?

[Crafty1_AJ]

Oh, listen darlin', you're just scratching the surface here on some of my stellar blunders! For starters, I did not understand that when you pour a pillar, the bottom of the mold is the TOP of your candle! My first one had a lovely "bottom" but the top was a bit funky. Wonder why? LOLOL

[Purple Lilac]

Oh, listen darlin', you're just scratching the surface here on some of my stellar blunders! For starters, I did not understand that when you pour a pillar, the bottom of the mold is the TOP of your candle! My first one had a lovely "bottom" but the top was a bit funky. Wonder why? LOLOL

Very interesting, I don't make pillars though.

[Mei-Mei]

One of my worst blunders was a dangerous one, but fortunately no one got hurt. I left a pot of wax on the stove and forgot about it completely. My fiance went into the kitchen for a snack and found some majorly scorched wax. Our house smelled like burned lavender all day. Since then I've become really paranoid about wax on the stove and I stand there staring at it until it's ready to pour.

[IlluminatedGifts]

When I was making bakery pies I had two pots melting – one for strawberry and one for blueberry. I had a friend over and was gabbing with her when I realized that the strawberry was colored blue and the blueberry was colored red. <sigh> I chalked it up as another soon to be senior moment!

Chris

[Candlewitch]

I grabbed the wrong FO and poured ANGEL WINGS in Purple wax for my Lavender clamshells. FUNKY! I was so mad!

[mindy5140]

I've done quit a few dumb things, lol.

1) I was warming up my tart molds and instead of using a pot holder I used my bare hands, Thank goodness my son wasn't home because he would of learned a whole bunch of new words.

2) When I first started using a presto pot I guess I let the wax in there to long and it started smoking really bad, so I opened up all the windows and smoke was flying out and the neighbors called the fire department, thinking my house was on fire. I still haven't lived that one down, considering my bf is a fireman and all his buddies were the ones to come.

3) Dropped a bottle of red dye and caught it, I guess when I caught it I squeezed it and it went everywhere, floor, counter, me but thanks to this board I got the dye off of everything except for my clothes.

4) Was talking on the phone and forgot to put the FO in the wax and poured them into the containers, but I had pretty purple non scented candles.

5) I did what you did put to much beeswax in my wax and they cracked so bad when they cured and my wick also tunneled.

6) Used Joywax for Pillars then couldn't understand why they weren't burning right, duh because it was a container wax.

I'm sure there is more, but don't want to bore you guys.

Mindy

[Lorrie]

I grabbed the wrong FO and poured ANGEL WINGS in Purple wax for my Lavender clamshells. FUNKY! I was so mad!

That's not all that bad.

I was making pillars one morning and I wasn't paying attention and I knocked over three of my freshly filled pillar molds. You want to talk about a mess! I had wax all over the counters, the sides of them, on the top of my glass top stove, and all over the floor. It took me some time to get it all cleaned up. I was just happy I didn't get any on myself..

[kuepie]

Like pay attention. Last year before completely moving my supplies to the garage I was taking stuff back out when I was through with it, and bringing stuff back in to make candles. Well, I threw the black color block in the bottome of my melt pot and went to bring the block back out to the garage and get more wax. Well, I put the melting pot on the scale and added my wax, and need I say more............I forgot to take the color block out before I melted the wax. What a fricking mess that was....

[Crafty1_AJ]

Once I left an open bottle of red candle dye on my work area, which dd accidentally knocked over and spilled. She cleaned up the mess, but accidentally got red dye in her hair. When she discovered the dye, she proceeded to CUT IT OUT with a pair of scissors. ACK! Her bangs looked, ummmm....shall we say "interesting" for a few weeks. ROFL

[daniedb]

LOL, these are so funny!

My worst blunder was when I was in a huge hurry, and trying to multitask. I had a small glass dish, about an ounce, that had some wax in it and I put it IN a saucepan with a tiny bit of water, to melt it quickly on the stovetop (why didn't I put it in the microwave, you ask? I dunno). I totally forgot about it (multitasking be damned), and when I remembered, I was so frantic to get back in there that I raced in without my shoes, saw that the water had all boiled away, so I grabbed a pair of tongs, fished out the container, and placed it on the cool stovetop. Upon contact with the cool counter, the firey hot container shattered into a million pieces, which caused me to jump back, landing on a billion degree piece of glass, embedding itself in my foot, but also, since it was so hot, burned a hole right in there, which served to cauterize the wound, but also made me feel like I had just been branded. I've never screamed so loud...thankfully, it healed without infection, but it took over SIX months for the wound to close properly and for my foot to look normal again. I was on crutches for about a week, which is delightful with a 2-year-old.

Yay me.

[lindsaycb]

I think my favorite is putting wax in my presto & not realizing the spout was open. Many many MANY minutes later I here this trickling...and its my wax pouring down my counter all over my cupboards. This wax wasn't white. It was red...and red just never pulls off your new cupboards

[valerie6]

Hi,

Well I have also had a oops, I was making a large batch of candles and I ran out of the scent I was using went to grab my new container of fo and poured the rest, while stirring it did not smell right, I realized I used two different fo, althought they were both fruity scents it was ok, but the did not smell very well together while burning!!!!!!!!!!!!

Valerie

[Lightning Bug]

Thank you all...some made me smile, all made me feel oh so much better about the things I have done and do! Thank you all for sharing. Many have "been there, done that". Beth

[Marilyn]

:laugh2:

[whiffandsniff]

The only thing I've done was major serious. I left my pour pot on the double boiler and the phone rang. I was on the phone for a really long time and all the water evaporated and I kept smelling smoke. Needless to say my boiler was empty and starting to burn everything. It was not pretty and I was pretty freaked out.

[mystical_angel1219]

Oh my.. the foot fiasco even hurt me... OUCH!

Oh I have done a few lovely little numbers. I had this wholesale order that I waited till the very last possible second to even start. So I lined up tables with wicked jars and measured all the FO's out. (I have a bunch of those cocktail shaker glasses) Thought I was saving time~ while I was waiting for the wax to melt in every Presto I had in the house. Well, I went and made all the candles. Such pretty colors. Life is good.

Till I get up the next day to finish them off and get them labeled and ready to ship. Hmm.. I don't smell anything in these candles. Why? Because some idiot (me) went and moved those shaker glasses to another table to make space for pour pots. So now I had 13 cases of candles with no fragrance. Lucky me. I was so livid.

Good thing we don't pay any fee's here for not recycling.

[grandmaskitchen]

Not only once, but twice I left the spigot open on my presto pot while the wax was melting. Needless to say, the wax poured down the side of my wall next to the table and ended up in a big pile on my floor! What a mess that was to clean up! At least it was a soy blend, so it was fairly easy to clean up.