Month: December 2005

This Chanukah, I really wanted to try making my own beeswax candles for the menorahs. We have some really pretty dipped wax candles, but beeswax is a little different because it burns longer than other similarly-sized candles, it doesn’t put off any smoke, and it doesn’t drip wax – which is a big advantage, I think.

Hobby Lobby had sheets of beeswax – they were selling two sheets of 8″x16-1/2″ sheets per pack. Some wick was included in the pack, but I went ahead and bought more to make certain I had enough for the project (the wick labels will indicate what size is best).

(Below:) Here’s what I used: a menorah to make sure I was making the candles the correct thickness (but beeswax is so forgiving…you can just pinch it to make it fit if it isn’t exact the first time), the beeswax, a hairdryer (to make the wax pliable – but it really wasn’t necessary), scissors to cut the wax, wick, and an old Martha Stewart magazine that gave dimensions to cut the wax sheets. I cut the wax into 4″x2″ sheets and was able to make about 32 candles.

Next, just cut the wick a bit longer than the wax sheet…about 5″, and make a little knot at one of the ends of the wick:

Lay the wick at one edge of the beeswax, and just roll it (pretty tightly, but not tight enough to break the wax) all the way to the other side. I just used my fingers to rub the seam of the finished candle so that it wasn’t noticeable.

Here they are, all piled up. The two sheets of beeswax made about 32 candles:

…and here they are! The candles burned for about 45 minutes (they have to last at least 30 minutes according to minhag), and they were so pretty! Now I’m thinking about making Shabbos candles with beeswax, and some other ideas.

I just discovered Hobby Lobby last week…I’m familiar with Michael’s, and I’ve been to A.C. Moore a couple of times, but Hobby Lobby seems to have soooo much more selection…

Anyway, I’ve been wanting to try make-your-own glycerin soap – it’s also called melt and pour soap. I’m not really interested in making the soap that requires lye (what some people refer to as *real* soap) because you have to be super-exact in making it, and it is dangerous if you’re not careful. I like the idea of using glycerin soap because it seems very easy to work with and because you can still do really fun things with it like add colors, fragrances, exfoliants, and other things that you might want to suspend in the soap.

Hobby Lobby had this bag (below) of pure glycerin soap in a 32oz. size for a little under $6. I got one bag and a tiny bottle of fragrance (I used honey almond).

All you do is put a few of the glycerin blocks into a microwave-safe bowl, and microwave for 30 seconds, then 15 or 20 second intervals until it’s all melted:

I try to keep some chopsticks around so that I can use them for things like this (stirring) and just throw them away later…this is the part of the process that I put in the fragrance (just a few drops per ounce of soap that was melted):

Once the soap was all melted, I opened up an empty, thoroughly cleaned container of eggnog (yum!), because I figured this was the perfect size to cut bars of soap from.

I just poured the melted soap into the carton, then waited about two hours:

…I stripped the carton away from the now-solid soap:

…and cut the molded soap into bars. I just used a regular chef’s knife and cut the block into about four bars (very easy to slice through). They smell and look great, and I think they’ll make nice presents for friends (I’m making several small things to combine). I’ll just need to wrap each bar in some cellophane, and I think they’ll be a big hit!

Now that I’ve got the hang of this, I think next time I might try adding some ground outmeal, or some lavender, or some….hmmmm……

There are several, several really neat websites about making soap — here are a couple:

Teach Soap
Bramble Berry

I made this for a baby announcement…

While I was at Jo-Ann Fabrics/Crafts in Mobile, I bought a 12″ white styrofoam wreath form and two pink feather boas. The only other thing I needed for the project was my clear jewelry string, scissors, and hot glue gun.

I just tied the clear jewelry string to one end of the boa, and tied that to the wreath (I hot-glued these knots to make extra-sure they stayed).

…then I just wrapped the boa around and around and around the wreath form until I got to the end of it, and just tied the end to the beginning of another boa with more clear jewelry string (again, hot-gluing the knot):

All done! I might just need to trim it up in the center with my scissors, but I think it looks really great (like my other feather wreath, though, for some reason it looks so much better and fun in person than in my pictures):

It’s been just a little over a month since my last post about forcing paperwhites (here), and they’re now blooming, and smell *wonderful*!

…and now it’s time for me to force more of the bulbs, and some of these I’ll be giving as gifts. All I’ll need to do is to pop the top on the jars and wrap a pretty bow around them, with instructions to just make sure the water stays constant at the very bottom of the bulb. I did this a few years ago at my office and it was neat to go into my friends’ offices and see (and smell) their pretty paperwhites bloom!