If you are anything like me, you have lots of candles like the photo above. You burn them and then just before all the wax melts and evaporates, low and behold the darn wick is gone first. Well, I have found a fun idea to upcycle those little pieces that are leftover and end up with a bunch of jars and candle holders you can use for a future craft project!
Difficulty: Moderate-Difficult
Materials:
– All of your candles that have a little bit or a lottle bit of wax left
– New wicks for your “new” candles
– Candle holders for your “new” candles. You’ll have to guesstimate what size you need for these based on how many candles you have to upcycle.
– A Pot that’s about 2 quarts
– Scissors
– Tongs
– An old fork you don’t care about potentially ruining (maybe consider getting a free or cheap one at a thrift store or garage sale???)
– Paper towels
– Oven mitts
– Glue Dots
– Patience!
How to Assemble:
The first thing I did was I picked two empty candle holders that I had for the upcycled candles I was going to make. I then took two new wicks that I got from my craft store and used some glue dots to affix them to the bottom of the inside of the holders. This is what they looked like before I added any wax to them:
Then it was time to melt the wax in the “old” candles.
I took the 2 quart pot and filled it about half way with water and then set it on my burner. I set the burner to high until the water was boiling then dropped the heat to medium. One at a time I did the following:
1. Take the “old” candle and using an oven mitt or tongs hold it in the hot water. (Be careful to make sure that water doesn’t go into the “old” candle!!)
2. Once the wax in it melts pour the wax into the “new” candle holder. If the wick from the “old” candle falls in fish it out with the fork and place it in the garbage.
3. Set old candle holder back in the boiling water for a few seconds.
4. While it’s still hot carefully hold it with the oven mitt covered hand while placing paper towels inside with tongs and wiping out any leftover residue. Set aside the old holder and discard the paper towel with the residue.
I repeated this with the next several jars and candle holders until I ended up with these:
Make sure you clip the wicks down to a quarter of an inch before burning them. Any bigger and the flame could get too big for comfort and be a fire hazard.
Once I cleaned out all the old jars and old candle holders I had all of these:
