diy homemade candles
Candle making is a lot easier than you’d think, and the possibilities for scents are endless! My favorite thing about making candles is that you can truly personalize them to whoever you’re gifting them to… plus, they’re really inexpensive to make.
To make your own homemade candles, you will need:
- Soy candle wax ($4.99 for a pound at Michael’s. Don’t forget to use a coupon!)
- Candle wick ($3.99 also at Michael’s)
- Fragrance oil: vanilla and cranberry (for example)
- Dye in the color of your choice (optional; I didn’t use any for this DIY)
- Hot glue gun
- Food thermometer
- Mason jar, tea cup, or whatever you’d like to hold your candle with saucepan and a glass or medal bowl big enough to sit over the pot. This will act as a double broiler. (If you have an actual double broiler, use that instead.)
1. Start off by hot gluing the bottom of the candle wick into the jar you will be using.
2. Next, melt your soy candle wax in your DIY double broiler (or actual double broiler) and wait for its temperature to hit 180 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Once it’s melted and you’ve added your scent of choice, slowly pour into your jar.
I’ve read a ton of candle tutorials and most suggest you shave your wax before melting it. The wax is incredibly hard though, and shaving it would have taken way too long. Instead I just took a leap of faith and placed the block of wax into the bowl and let it slowly melt on its own. It really only took about 4 minutes and the results were great, so don’t worry about going through more steps than you need to with this!
That’s it, super simple and in less than 4 hours you’ll have an impressive gift for your friends and family!
I poured this candle into a mason jar and jazzed it up a bit with a piece of ribbon and a few pearls and Christmas leaves.
Super easy and so fun to make!! Enjoy 🙂
A big thanks to cute Jess for being a return guestie this month! In case you missed her awesome tips for holiday entertaining on a budget, or her fab DIY coasters, check them out!
I’m looking forward to making these festive candles! I’m wondering where you bought the fragrance oil?
Hi Brooke! Check amazon, here is the vanilla for example: http://amzn.to/22gVJbq (:
Thanks for the DIY tutorial! I plan on making a few of these in mason jars for family members this year… One question, how much scent did you use per candle and how many blocks of wax did it take to fill up a mason jar?
Thanks!
Hi! Let us ask Jess (:
Hi! Sorry about that, I should have been more specific! I used 2 bars of wax for the mason jar and 1 for the teacup. I put in 5 drops of oil 🙂 hope that helps!
These look great! I’ve made homemade beeswax candles in the past because I’m really sensitive to smells, but that cinnamon latte sounds amazing!