Thursday, December 22, 2011

homemade holiday: teacup candles

i love crafts. i get giddy about taking on projects and creating new life out of old things. this christmas season, we decided to go with homemade gifts because, let's face it, spending hours in my kitchen beats spending hours in my car looking for a parking space at the horribly overcrowded mall. 

so, this christmas i skipped the mall and i skipped online shopping.  instead, i shopped for craft ideas on pinterest.  i admit...pinterest has sucked me in. [my name is heather and i am addicted to pinterest.] time waster? yes, but so is facebook and my iphone and lots of other things. creative inspiration? heck yes! check out these adorable teacup candles that i found.

this is a super easy craft that cost me around $10.  i picked up a couple of vintagey tea cups from a local thift shop ($1-$2 each) and some candles ($.50 each) and wicks ($2) from the craft store.  you can also use old candles that you have lying around the house, but we didn't have a huge stash of those.

 

 to prep, place the metal part of the wick at the base of the teacup, wrap the extra wick around a pen and tape it into place. the pen should lay flat across the tea cup and the metal part of the wick should touch the bottom of the cup.


using a metal can to protect your cookware, heat the candles in boiling water until fully melted (the wick and metal won't melt so you don't need to worry about removing those first).


when the wax is completely melted, pour it into the cup but leave a few centimeters between the pen and the top of the wax and be sure that the wick stays in place. if you want to make scented candles, add a few drops of fragrance at this point (i used candles that were already scented).


the wax will start to get cloudy right away.  let it set for a couple hours before trimming the wick and removing the pen.

 the finished product!  more to come...

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