Marble Candle Question

[Daria Blue]

I made my first marble candle last night with liquid dye and I was very happy with how it turned out.

My question is; I have both liquid and block dye. Whenever I use my block dye - for pillars and such I've used a cheese graiter to shave it rather than putting a large piece in so it melts down and mixes in with the wax quicker. Would this method work with making a marble candle or should I just stick with liquid dye?

I'm afraid that since the wax is cool and slushy that when I pour it for the marble candle, the shaved block dye might not melt in. However I do have a lot more colors in block form then liquid so I'm hoping someone will say that it should work or that they've had success with it.

[geekrunner]

Daria,

I made some marbled pillars too, and they are really fun to do, and turned out nice. I used liquid dye in mine, too. The big trick with liquid dye is not stirring the wax goop too much before pouring it into the mold. If you are wanting to try dye block shavings, it might give you a little different effect, and may allow you to stir the wax goop a little longer. You'll just have to try it and see. I would try to get the shavings as thin as possible.

Another thought is to melt a very small amount of paraffin, maybe a tablespoon or two, then add some dye block shavings to it, allow to melt, then use it as you would a liquid dye. Or maybe just melt some dye block in a metal tablespoon, like a heroin addict would do to shoot up (I've seen that on TV, I'm not a heroin addict )

HTH! geek

[Daria Blue]

I didn't even think of the melting it in a spoon idea - I'll definitely try that out! I'll just play around with it and try putting in the shavings on their own to see how it works. I wish I could do that now but I'm out of the right size wicking, so I have to go get some more this afternoon and hopefully this evening I'll be able to get on it!

[Scented]

Just shavings won't be overly effective given the coolness that the wax needs to be to hold the color in place. You can heat gun, i suppose, but that could get tricky.

[Candle Man]

Here is a site with instructions for an over-dip marble effect for votives, pillars & ball candles. http://www.onestopcandle.com/candle/marbleproj.php

[Donita]

I first melted it in a spoon....then little poached egg cups....then when I started making a lot of them....I used my electric heater with metal cups for doing batik dying....I have seveal cups and metal eye droppers. I like the liquid too, but I have soooooooooooooooo many color chips and chunks. Donita