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Archive for the ‘Handicraft’ Category

Candles are very cheap: you can get hundreds of small candles in a bag for the price of a Happy Meal, and the bigger ones aren’t much more expensive. When it’s so easy to just buy your candles in a shop, why on earth would you want to make candles yourself?

Well, that’s like asking why you’d want to do a painting yourself when you could buy a print and put it in a frame. Candle making is an art, with often beautiful results, not to mention the fun time you can have while you’re making the candles.

Candle making today belongs thoroughly in the arts and crafts category, which means that you can get all the equipment and waxes you’ll need from your local crafts shop.

To make a candle, all you really need to do is get some wax and melt it in a pan (you can even use wax from mass-produced candles if you can’t find any plain wax). Once the wax is melted, you can add dye if the wax isn’t already coloured. Then just put the wick (the string that burns) into a mould, pour in the wax and leave it to set. Again, if you can’t get a real candle mould, you can improvise with disposable household objects, such as half a milk carton or some other kind of bottle.

Of course, that basic method is just the beginning. Once you’ve got that down, you can start mixing different coloured waxes, and using more complicated moulds, and even adding things like glitter and other decoration. You can add small objects like shiny pebbles into the hot wax, or even cover larger objects in wax to make them into big candles. If you need more inspiration, the chances are that the craft shop (or the library) will have books about candle making, with more in-depth ‘recipes’ that you can either follow directly or incorporate in your own designs.

A candle, consisting of an internal wick and a column of solid fuel, illuminates the surrounding area. Due to the invention of modern equipments used for illuminating the surrounding, candle is not an essential product for this purpose. But the demand for candles has gone up as a work of art. Different varieties of candles have flooded the market. The candles are of different colors, aroma, and shapes.

The making of a candle involves various equipments. Paraffin wax, melting system, candy thermometer, and scales to measure the amount of water and wax are required. Ladle and spoons are used for stirring and pouring wax. Chemically treated wick that burns for a longer period of time are used. Since wax is soft, stearic acid is used to make it solid. Color dyes are used to make the appearance brighter.

It involves a very simple process to make the candle. Suspend a wick in the center of a mold. Dissolve stearic acid and color dye in a container and heat the wax to 190 degrees. Combine the stearic mixture with paraffin and stir it continuously to blend it. Pour the mixture in a mold, allow time for it to cool and then remove it from the mold.

Acquiring a gel candle has now become a fashion. You can prepare it easily at home. All you need to get are a container, gels, pans, wicks and the basic necessary items. While selecting containers, it is best to use a heat resistant glass. Gel wax, paraffin, candle scent, dye, wick, wick clip, and wick base are the other requirements. Different colors can be mixed together to form a new color according to your taste. The oil based liquids; pellets and wax solids are the sources of scent. The scent has to be added before pouring the candle to avoid evaporation.

Items like buttons, marbles, toys and jewels can be added in the candle. Avoid inflammatory items. Candles are used for various reasons. They are used in almost all the religions. The candles represent the light of God in Christianity. Candles are lit at the start and end of the weekly Sabbath celebration. For Kwanzaa and for other reasons of humanism, candles are lit. Thus, the candle not only serves illuminating and decoration purposes, but also serves religious causes.