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Every year for Christmas we make something special to give the adults in our family. This year we have chosen homemade candles. I will need to make 12-15 candles in small mason jars so we can decorate them. These are my questions:

How much and what kind of wax?

How much scent?

How much color dye?

What supplies are best?

Am I crazy do to this or is it easy enough?

Thanks in advance for any advice and help. What a great site!!!!!!

Brodie

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yes, you might be slightly crazy! :grin2:

Here's my two-cents worth. Buy a votive making kit (Peak) and makes some votives and TEST each votive you make. Fragrance and dye can affect burns in different ways. Then buy 12-15 tight fitting votive holders. Place the votive holders with votives inside the mason jars and decorate the mason jars.

You don't want to give a gift that is going to shatter and spill hot wax all over your family's furniture, or worse, burn their house down.

Candle making is more of a science than most people realize, but if you take your time, TEST and do it right, it can be most rewarding.

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yes, you might be slightly crazy! :grin2:

Here's my two-cents worth. Buy a votive making kit (Peak) and makes some votives and TEST each votive you make. Fragrance and dye can affect burns in different ways. Then buy 12-15 tight fitting votive holders. Place the votive holders with votives inside the mason jars and decorate the mason jars.

You don't want to give a gift that is going to shatter and spill hot wax all over your family's furniture, or worse, burn their house down.

Candle making is more of a science than most people realize, but if you take your time, TEST and do it right, it can be most rewarding.

I agree and that's a great idea! :)

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Georgia's idea is a good one, because votives are one of the easiest candles to learn how to make. They are also easy to test because of their small size. A larger candle would take much longer to test completely, and you have less than a month until they're due.

The votive starter kit from Peak (www.peakcandle.com) comes with five different fragrance oils. The wax provided makes up to 80 votives. So you could give five different scents to each person and it would make a nice gift.

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Thanks for the advice. We may just do the votives, then.

Why are the votives easier to make than the mason jars. I would think that pouring and leaving is easier than dealing with a mold. Just curious! It sounds like a good place to start. I am testing the candles to make sure they don't catch fire or are unsafe in any way. Sorry to sound so clueless but this whole sort of fascinates me.

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Votives burn well or they don't. With jars, you add the glass angle. Does the jar melt pool reach to the edge, does the glass blacken, blah blah blah? Unless the jar is totally straight sided, you are talking a whole lot more testing. Votives are a great starting point and the set from Peak's is a very good value.

e

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Mason jars (or any container) require a great deal more experimentation in order to find the correct wick. Testing them also takes a lot longer time as they take so much longer to burn down compared to 15 or so hours for a votive.

For votives it is a lot less tricky especially if you get the votive starter kit which provides the wax and wick which have already been determined to work well together.

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Brodie,

What a cool tradition you guys have going. A home made gift is so much more meaningful. We do a home made gift exchange at our family reunion, which is a big hit with everyone.

I agree that a votive kit is a good way to begin. If you insist on container candles, I believe there are some container candle kits available as well.

Candle making is a fascinating hobby/business. Be forewarned, you might get addicted.

Don G.

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Use a zinc core wick for your votives and jar candles...they won't smoke or burn as hot as a braided wick. If money is tight, get some sand and one votive mold or something of similar size...wet the sand to a stiff consistency...not too watery or dry.... place wicks and pour wax...use a wire with a central hoop to keep the wick centered...good luck and have fun!!!!!

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  • 3 weeks later...

I finally did it! I really got scared with the whole container thing so I thought I would do the votives. That lasted until my husband cmae home and totally shot that idea out. His friends at work do container candles. He said is they can do it we surely can. He ordered all the stuff to do them and they came out great. Not hard at all. We used J50 wax and one pour was all it took. No sink holes or anything. Great adhesion too to my surprise. We've been burning one and are all most finished. No problems so far. What exactly am I looking for to go wrong with the burn anyway? Thanks for all the advice. It was very fun and a nice holiday family activity to make our gifts.

One last thing, who sells the strongest FO? I like really strong scents when you burn. Mine smell while burning but not as much for my personal preference.

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Ah the joy of testing, which is why people pointed you towards the easier thing to start with -- votives. Among the things you're looking for are the way the candle burns, soot, wick size, the way a fragrance reacts during burns, tunnelling, scent throw, adhesion, etc.

As for suppliers that sell strong scents, another reason to test. There are a lot of reputable suppliers out there. Search, test and discover what appeals to your taste. What I may like, you may not and vice versa. There's a supplier list in the information section on candlemaking. One place you can start with is Peaks.

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It wasn't so much a matter that you can't do containers, just that testing takes much longer. I also agree with what Scented said. Besides finding a strong FO, there are other things that affect the scent throw. The wax and the size/type wick are a couple. Now, you head down the testing road. Make sure you got a full tank of gas ;)

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