January 30, 2012
Around the same time that firing up the wood stove becomes a daily necessity; the dining table begs to be cast with the angelic halo of a lit candle for breakfast and dinner. Its cozy and communing glow awakens us gently in the morning, and romantically reacquaints us with each other at the end of the day as we settle in for our evening meal together.
A ritual that has formed in our family has been making dip candles on Candlemas. We don’t quite make enough to meet all our candle needs for the year but I can hear it in my daughter’s voice and see in her industriousness as she goes to work that she believes that this is indeed our mission at hand so I just kind of go along with it while making a mental note to find us an even bigger hunk of wax for next time so we can dip into our handmade stash all year round.
I’m in love with these candles’ imperfect gorgeousness and when grouped together they kind of remind me of a forest of Dr Seuss trees, so wavy and organic looking. And the kids hold such pride in their candle lit faces when we reveal to dinner guests that we made these from scratch together.
Candlemas rolls around on February 2nd – midway between winter solstice and spring equinox. Be sure to gather your materials well in advanced of this date because this is what I always find to be the Mission Impossible part. You probably have local sources for beeswax but if not some hunting around by phone may be required or at least the magic of Google. Either way I’m sure you’ll have no problems finding the following:
- A few meters of candle wick
- Beeswax cut up into smaller chunks
- Two pots of water
- 2 empty tin cans
- Jar of cool water
- Chopsticks
(Please note that this technique, due to the hot substance component, may not be the ideal candle making technique for the younger than four set. And even at this age it takes much supervision so may also not be suitable for a larger group activity unless there is a strong parent to child ratio. Another more age appropriate project may then be rolling candles from beeswax sheets.)
Before beginning, lay out some newspapers on your work surface to catch any runaway drips or spillage. Boil a pot of water filled up enough so a tin can filled with beeswax chunks will float nicely on top. While waiting for the wax to melt tie a 16” piece of wick to the middle of a chopstick. Once the wax is melted dip end of the wick into the tin can, pull it out and immediately dip it into a jar of cool water (this will harden the wax immediately). The first couple of dips you might need to manipulate the infant candle with your fingers so that it straightens out a bit.
Continue dipping in this manner (into wax then cool water) until the candle looks to be the right ‘chubbiness’. Cut off the wick at an appropriate looking wax length and then dip the remaining wick in. While working on this tin can full of beeswax, have another tin of beeswax kept warm with another load of wax ready at the go. Soon you’ll have a bevy of bee-uties ready to cast their magic glow on you and yours as the promise of warmer days begins to radiate from both outside and from within.
Written by Kathy Stowell
Kathy loves the smell of beeswax so much so she keeps her hair band resting on top of a hunk of one so she can get a big whiff of it each night when washing her face before crawling into bed. She blogs about her passion for simplicity parenting, living the slow life and nurturing a mother’s creative calling over at her blog Bliss Beyond Naptime.
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