RobsCreations

Finally, temperature lowered and I managed to prepare a  set of candles  for this fall . Candles  are  great  for any  occasion ! Halloween🎃, Xmas🎄, B-days🎂, romantic dinners🥂 or relaxing nights🌃.  You can keep 'em for yourself or give them to family and friends as gifts! If you've never made candles before, but you're eager to try,  here you have 10 basic steps to follow. This is  not  a  comprehensive  guide and does  not  pretend to be  a  candle-making  course . 1)  weigh the wax  Do you want to know more about  waxes ? Follow this  LINK   2)  Melt it in a double boiler (bain-marie). Stir every now and then...    ⚠ Do not boil the wax ⚠  Never   ever  place the container with the wax directly on the stove! 3)   A t this point, y ou can add some color HERE , you have a post on candle dyes. ...

...well, it depends on the wax! I've been making candles for 3 years now and I have experienced several problems myself before finding the right temperature to end up with flawless nice candles. If you decide to make candles: take your time, use a thermometer and check the temperature of your melted wax before pouring, always ! It happened to me several times that, because I was in a rush, I poured the wax soon after I have melted it and I ended up with really ugly candles! If you pour at high temperature you may end up with fragrance loss (evaporation), frosting (this is a frequent problem with soy wax), massive shrinking (not good for container candles), cracking on top. If you pour at a very  low temperature you can have jump lines , wax can start to solidify in the container and so on... Full post on  FROSTING HERE . In my experience, buying certified frosting-resistant soy wax only partially limits the problem... Two golden ru...

I've been recently asked to make a special candle for twin babies. Considering my new found love for card making, I decided to create a matching card as well. But let's start from the candle... I haven't been making candles for a while now (it's a pain over summer time!!!) and needed to re-order raw materials and stuff to stock up! That was fun too! This is a ' pillar candle with chunks ' I've already talked about these candles over the blog ( HERE ), but let me remind you something: They are great because they use the good scent throw of the soy wax and the hardness of paraffin, basically the best qualities of both!!! If you want to see other examples of these candles follow  THIS LINK Gummy bears are made with soy wax too and you can find pictures of the silicon moulds I've used  HERE For the card, I've used baby design paper and recycled buttons, and a sentiment from the Mama Elephant Stamps - Labeled M...

I tried to make swirls many many times... of course without succeeding! I don't know whether this time I can be satisfied with the result, but at least I prepared some nice candles that a french friend described as 'des morceaux  de ciel' (literally 'bits of sky' ). How to do this? Once I've seen a video (or maybe it was a blog/webpage) in which someone was using the following technique but with many colours all at the same time. 1) Melt and pour plain (no colours, some fragrance if you fancy it) soy wax in your containers 2) when the wax is firm, make some holes with the help of a wooden  skewer  or anything pointy. Holes should be as close as possible to the container's walls, and should be running along 3/4 of the candle. 3) drop some candle-specific liquid colour in the holes  4) heat  the container's wall  with a heat gun or a hair dryer. This will partially melt the wax allowing the colour to blend in. ...

Why fast protocol? Because I've melted the soy wax in the microwave, instead of a double boiler, saving a lot of time and electricity. I wrote a post about the use of microwave in candle-making at the beginning of this year  HERE , but let me anyway remind you few basic things: - NO tin containers in the microwave. Go for pyrex or any other microwave-compatible glassware; - 10-20 seconds bursts at full blast will be more than enough to melt a small amount of soy wax;  - If you still have unmelted soy wax flakes DO NOT repeatedly heat the wax, just stir it for a minute: flakes will disappear very easily and you won't risk to overheat the wax and the container; - the microwave trick works well if you're dealing with small batches of wax; - for soy wax is great. I don't use it for melting paraffin because paraffin takes longer to melt I don't want to risk overheating glass container and wax; These candles are made of soy wax and minuscule pellets o...

Definitely not the first post on paraffin candles, but here there is a new 'effect' I want to talk about.  These white-ish lines (also called jump lines) can be an anti-aesthetic trait on some candles (I hate them on glass jar candles), but in some specific cases (like this one) they really give the candle a beautifully textured look making it appear vintage!  The secret? I let the melted paraffin cool down for quite a bit before pouring it in the mould, and I have poured it quite slowly.  The white-ish ridges/lines appear because as soon as the wax touches the mould's walls, it hardens. Mould's temperature remains constant and, without any external heat source, it is impossible to re-melt these lines.

First post of the year (I really hope this won't trigger polemics)! Ahahahhaa! Before Xmas holidays I've been spending a lot of time making candles (mainly with soy wax) with the obvious consequence of generating a lot of chaos all around the flat and being obliged to do a lot of post-crafting cleaning. In addition, I have used a lot of current (with an obvious corresponding increase in the electricity bill!). Yes you got it right, current! I always melt my waxes in a double boiler and I have an electric stove! For my husband's sake I have slowed down with candle making but I always fancy to prepare some candles for us or for close friends and I started wondering whether it would have worked using the microwave to melt small amounts of soy wax... I knew it would have been possible to melt soy wax in a microwave, but I honestly never did it before because I don't like to overheat wax (which is never a good thing). Important reminders: - NO tin containers in th...

Some time ago I bought this nice silicon moulds... I have already posted the Pannacotta candles with their tiny adorable fruits decorations, but I haven't shown you yet the results obtained with the Xmas-themed mould !    Here you can see a zoom in picture of the decorations I've made (a bit out of focus! hihihihi). They're made of soy wax and have been painted at a later stage. I've been preparing a lot of candles for customers and/or friend lately, but I also wanted to create a special Xmas edition for me and my beloved ones! Ladies and Gentlemen here you have the Xmas tree candles! This one below is a version without whipped top!

A lot of different opinions about that... to cut a long story short I'd say it's worth giving it a try if you do not exaggerate  with the amount of mica! Too much mica can clog the wick (either cotton or wood) and won't anyway add more colour to the final products! For this project I have used soy wax and paraffin and two different kinds of wick (cotton and wood). To dissolve mica powder I have used some carrier oil (sweet almond oil) and did that before adding micas to the melted wax. I have used only a tiny amount of micas! For more details on how to make mica-coloured candles please visit my  FB page

Have you almost run out of your wax stocks, but you're still keen on making candles? Mix left overs! Amber dream (named after the amber  fragrance I've used)is a 50% soy wax and 50% paraffin (w/w)candle. Paper craft tag is handmade too!

Entirely made of wax (fruit decorations too)!   No other words needed: I simply love them!!!  They are my best piece ever!

Why was I so excited to receive my silicon moulds from   WhysperFairy ? Because of this cute little strawberries   and blackberries ! The blackberries are made of 100% soy wax coloured with violet and grey wax pellets. For the strawberries, one is made of paraffin coloured with red pellets and the other is made of uncoloured soy wax that I've then painted with wax-compatible paint. For the petiole and small leaves of both I've again used wax-compatible paint.  Aren't they cute??? ...now I just need to prepare some candles and use them!

...not that it is something you have to do, but just in case you're keen on doing it: find yourself a glue gun !!! You don't really need the big, super-powerful and expensive ones. I bought mine for less than 8 Euros + 12 recharges for less than 10 Euros ! What I really like of my glue gun is that it is very small, easy to handle and doesn't heat as much as the big ones. Glue recharges are still fully melted, but they do not reach a crazy temperature avoiding you serious burnings. What can you use to decorate the container? Ribbons, crafting paper, felt flowers and so on! For the Wild orchid candle I've used a black satin ribbon, on which I've glued iron-on white stones and a pink felt-made flower. While for the Arlequin   candle I've used colourful miniaturized safety pins that I've glued everywhere on the container's surface