Honey is our ingredient of the season(s). You can find our archive of honey posts here. Today’s post is all about beeswax. If you have a supply of wax, you can also use it in potions, see our lip balms, sunscreen, wood balm, and lotion bar recipes.
Hello Friends! We’re just back from our bi-annual month-long vacation. Just like you, we never see these breaks coming, but we’re always so happy to be back!
So, let’s just jump back into. We’ll catch you up on our adventures in another post.
Since honey is our ingredient of the season, I’ve been thinking about all things bees. The smell of beeswax is one of my favorite cozy fall smells. I love burning beeswax candles, and still have a few left from our wedding! If you read that post, you’ll see that I had some trouble with wick sizes. With a little bit of research and testing, I was able to fix that issue.
Fortunately, rolled beeswax candles are much more forgiving, and you shouldn’t have any trouble with pooled wax drowning the wick.
Materials
I’m using wax sheets that I picked up at a local shop, but you can easily purchase rolled beeswax candle kits online. Look for a kit that comes with the sheets of wax and wicks. Not into yellow candles? This seller offers waxes in a variety of colors, and here’s a multi-color pack. The wax that I used is not dyed, and so it’s a very light cream color.
Many kits come with a single long strand of wick. If that’s the case, just cut the wick to the size you want, and start rolling.
How To
There’s really not much to this craft. Just roll the beeswax sheets around the wick until you reach your desired circumference. Roll the wax slowly and tightly, and when you’re done, use your finger to warm and seal the wax edges down the side and around the top of the candle.
On this particular day I was using pre-cut wicks with metal bases. These are useful if you’re making a basic taper candle. You can roll the candle until it’s the same diameter as the metal base, and then you know that your candle is the right size for the holder…
BUT… the beauty of rolled candles is that you can easily make them any circumference that you wish. I had that cute red bottle that I picked up at a thrift store and wanted to turn into a candle holder. Rather than trying to find the right sized candle to fit in the bottle, it was easy to roll a candle that was the exact right size.
Crafting with Kids
Those are little Alex’s hands rolling the candle in the photo above. I consider this a super kid-friendly craft. Just teach them to roll slowly and tightly, and you can’t go wrong.
I will often cut the wax to the exact size that I want for the final candle, that way the boys can roll up the whole thing without me watching over their shoulders. They love to roll their own candles, and then it makes any celebration that much sweeter when we light a candle that they made!
Store this idea away, and have the kiddos make the candles for your Thanksgiving table or for a solstice celebration.
