Candle Re-Making

I had a few old candles that could no longer burn well, but had enough wax left to want to keep.  I read somewhere that it was easy to melt down candles and pour them into new vessels, so I gave it a whirl.

Here are the supplies you need for your new candles: Wicks and wick clips, pliers to crimp the clips and some tape to hold the wick over the jar with a pencil.  You'll also need either new jars or clean and reuse the ones you are taking your old wax out of.

They also sell some kind of wax to stick the clip to the bottom of the jar, but all you need to do is dip it into the hot wax before placing it in the jar.

I melted the wax in its original glass container in one small pan on medium heat, and large chunks of an old pillar candle in a glass bowl over a pan with an inch of water.  Don't let the water boil, it should just be at a low simmer in the pan.

Here is the candle starting to be re-made.  I reused this candle jar since it had Christmas decorations on it, and I was using green, red, and white wax.

I had so little red wax left that the other colors overpowered it!  I ended up mixing together a different green shade and a cream shade for the top layer, thinking it would be lighter green- it unfortunately turned out brown :(  It was my first time doing this, so I'll know better for next time.

The finished first candle, ready for December :)

The second candle I simply filled with plain white wax- my sister decorated this dollar store candle jar years ago for a party favor, and it still looked so cute I decided to reuse it too!

One tip I would offer:  Don't use plastic to melt or pour the wax- all the glass bowls I used cleaned up nicely, but the plastic measuring cup I used to pour the melted was was a pain to clean!  I got it all out, but scratched my Pampered Chef measuring cup in the process :(

New Candles for very little money!
Happy Candle Making
~Sally