Day 4: Pillar candle

It is safe to say I was pretty anxious about making a pillar candle today. The more I thought about it the more I realized that this may not have been such a good project to put in this challenge. I have never made pillar candles before. I have never made any candle before!
I also knew that I had not bought everything that the tutorial called for and would have to be tweaking the instructions as I went along. I might as well fess up now... I am not good at following directions! I usually use them more as a guide line, cutting corners whenever possible. I know that is a really bad example but honestly I don't see me changing anytime soon. I know some of you probably think that is a crazy attitude but I am willing to bet there are a lot of you who are right there with me :)
OK, back to candles. The reason I had pillar candles on my list is because I received a LOT of candles from Pete's Nana not to long ago. They were mostly all long stick candles which I don't use very often so I thought I would be a good steward of what I was given and turn them into pillar candles for my sister's wedding reception.
I picked out the candles that would go with Danielle's colors. I still have boxes of other colors!

I began chopping up the candles with a knife which was pretty difficult and time consuming, but pillar candles are $10 a pop so it might be worth it!
I am a complete klutz in the kitchen (I have impaled myself on a sweet potato before!).
So in an effort to be careful I did not cut up the little tops of the candles. My husband would be proud.

To cut the candles I would slice off a chunk about 2in long then cut it down the middle and remove the wick. You could just pull the wick out of some of the smaller candles but that didn't work on the long candles.
After all my tan candles were cut up I set up my double boiler. I thought this may cause a problem because I didn't have a real double boiler and the only pots that I could find that would fit together were huge.

They also did not have a spout and the instructions were pretty insistent that you must have a spout for pouring the hot wax. I tried mine anyway.
Next, I prepared my mold. This was the only item that was purchased for this project. It was about $10 but Dani bought it so I am not counting it as a purchase for my own records.
When we bought this mold we had no idea that you were supposed to get a washer and whatever that piece of rubber is, and had never even heard of a jiffy wick. So, all I had to work with was the mold which also made me wonder if this project would turn out or not.
I ended up threading my wick (which I salvaged from one of the candles) through the hole at the bottom of the mold and used masking tape to hold it in place and cover the hole tightly so wax would hopefully not seep out.

And instead of a jiffy wick I used a "jimmy rig" looping the wick tightly around a pencil and tying it to the end.

The wax melting went well despite the fact that it took a some patience which I don't have. Then it was time to pour. My first test for not following instructions. Went off without a hitch! I didn't even spill any!

The instructions said to fill to 1/2in from the top and let set until a thick skin formed on top. I did all of this but apparently I didn't let it sit long enough because when I poked my relief holes the wax just kept filling them back in.

I let it sit longer and it worked better the second time. I also checked my tape job and all was going well! That was a big relief!
All of this was done between Landon's school subjects and on my lunch break. It was almost time to take him to Taekwondo. After Taekwondo I drive in just in time to teach my Wednesday night teen class so I knew I wouldn't have anymore time today. The instructions said that the candle will not come out of the mold until it is completely cool and the candle still had to have a second pour. So, even though the candle was still fairly warm, I reheated my remaining wax and made my second pour.
 When we got home from Taekwondo I stuck the candle in the freezer before heading to church just to make double sure that it would be completely cool by the time we got home. It was! The candle slipped right out of the mold and looks awesome! I am so incredibly excited that this worked and that all of my cutting corners so far doesn't seem to have made much of a difference!
Now you know a lot of my flaws but Yay I have a cute candle. :)

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