I've had a significant number of exhausted candles lying around for longer than I'd care to remember, and it was always a dream of mine (I don't always dream insanely big) to perhaps one day try reconstituting them!? Could it be done? I had no idea but it seemed reasonable enough.. get some wick, a few pencils.. Well the dream finally came to pass over this weekend when after yet another visit to IKEA I actually stuck to an agreement with myself (!) and visited a store next door to them called Hobby Craft - they were still there, and that's quite a thing for Sheffield. They had to do candle wick in some form I thought to myself, and true to form they did.. and more! This was both a joy and a pain as we were actually stuck there far longer than I intended, thanks to an overwhelming selection of just about any craft paraphernalia you could imagine, and even a modest but interesting collection of model spacecraft - I am not getting into that game again.. really! Far from doing things half arsed, I walked out with a pack of nine wicks (three differing sizes) pre-made with their bases, a glue gun for a ridiculously reasonable £5 (just under $6.85) and some spare glue sticks. To complete the effort I searched all today (Sunday) for a reasonably priced aluminium pitcher for the wax to melt in, but in the absence of even an unreasonably priced aluminium pitcher I settled for a small milk pan (£1.75/$2.40).
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| A worthy investment! |
Returning home I set about trying my hand at reconstituting these candles, as had been my plan for soooo long.. and... it worked! At least I think it has. The wax took all of about ten minutes to reclaim from the glasses and a further ten cleaning them all, which I arguably didn't have to do but it has left me with some fabulous glasses to work with.
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| Reclamation at its best! |
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| Three of the best and the aforementioned wicks, glued in their place. |
For a first go I've not worried about scents since the reclaimed wax is already infused with various delightful aromas, and the process wasn't a complicated affair - I blended it together in batches which seemed sensible to my nose in a pick'n'mix kinda way (as opposed to picking noses) and they've taken on something of a Frankenstein consistency. Still they do seem very pleasant and it was all just an experiment. I had no idea half way through the process that I would entertain the idea of this as a hobby, but I have to admit I may have been bitten by a bug of some kind.. probably a good thing since I can now customise my nose flavours, and reasonably priced decent candles are quite scarce, to say nothing of how much you end up paying for good ones!
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| Settling in.. We shall see how they do. |
To this entire end I would like to give a shout out to Jeff Standley from Standley Handcrafted for his timely and concise video on You Tube on the matter! I've learned the best time to pour your wax, how to cope with sink holes in your candles (I don't think you can apply the same theory to real sink holes, but I suppose someone could try a little top-up lava if they wanted) and how to use a pen body to set the wicks into place in their containers once they have glue on them - handy! He even had a glue gun for the job himself, which was after the fact for me since I only found his video this morning, after buying mine.. I often do things arse about face, and this time it paid off! Yes! The corner of my living room is probably thanking me for all this, and I've learned a bit in the process.
All in all it's made a change of pace, and you know.. any excuse for a bit of creativity really.
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