Candle Making the Cheapskate Way ;P

Saturday I had a few extra hours and decided to make some candles!  Now, I do candles differently than most. 

First of all, I buy used candles at garage sales and thrift stores.  Or, even better, people give me their old, half-burned candles from weddings, church services, etc.  I once got an entire grocery sack full of unused tapered candles for a dime!!!  Put a free classified ad in your paper asking for old candles, any condition, and watch them flock to you.

Pausing for a moment, why do I even bother with candles?  Well, as most of you know I am an amateur prepper, and with that comes the vast possibility of not having electricity for one reason or another.  Therefore, quite high on my list of needed preparations is light.
Secondly, I am not too excited about lighting a tall, unprotected taper candle around children in the event of our electricity going out.  I would much rather the candles be in glass containers and are less liable to spill over and cause a fire.
Lastly, "waste not, want not"!


What will I need? 
- candles
- wicking  (or see how I get wicks in instructions below)
- double boiler system (pan with water in it with either another pan or a glass container inside for melting the candles.  A wide-mouth quart jar works great!)
- tongs
- oven mitts
- old glass containers (I gather glass containers over time that would make good candle containers.  Salsa jars, artichoke glasses, jelly glasses, etc.)
- pencils and pens

Step 1: Melt the candles down

 - put a few inches of water in bottom pan
- melt candles on medium low to low in top pan/container
- keep an eye on the progress, but this is your time to prepare the wicking and jars








 
Step 2: Prepare jars and wicking
** instead of buying wicking from the store, which you may totally do, I use tongs to pull the wicking out of the melting taper candles**
 - tape one end of the wick to the bottom of the jar, and tie the other end taunt around a pen or pencil that is laying horizontally on the lid of the jar.  Some slack is ok.
 -repeat with the other jars 
- be sure to pull out any large impurities or the small, metal wick holder from the candles

 
Step 3: Pour into jars!
- using your oven mitts, pour the melted candles into the waiting jars.  I have never had one break, so I guess it must be safe enough? ;P
- let the jars sit overnight
- in the morning, clip the wick to normal candle length.  

Now, because of water surface tension, our homemade candles will have a "valley" in the center of the candle.  I have yet to correct this annoyance, but my engineer-husband assures me it is a scientific principle I cannot avoid without more advanced machinery and technique. ;P

Tips!
- this is a GREAT winter project as it heats the house
- GREAT activity for children to assist with
- obviously you will want to melt each candle color separately, pour separately, and let cool (only takes the amount of time of melting the next color). But these layered-color candles look great, too!
- the next time the electricity runs out, take pride in knowing you provided SAFE candles for your family, hardly spent a dime, and you recycled where waste is not an option! :-)