And we're off!

Just to let all know that I won't have dropped off the face of the earth, but have been packing as the family and I are going to be off on a holiday and won't be back for a while.  But stay tuned as I'll be back in full swing very soon!  In the meantime, I think I'm getting close to the look I'm after for my business cards and for my logo. Any thoughts, feel free to share :) Everyone have a great Whitsun and will be back soon!

First attempt at hurricane candles

I finally had a bit of time to get back to testing and experimenting, so I decided to break out my new hurricane mold and give making a photo hurricane candle a try.  There were a few complications with this, 1) I've never attempted to make a hurricane candle before 2) never embedded a photo in a candle before and 3) never used a water bath before.  So this was going to be fraught with new techniques to try, and I knew that it might not go according to plan.

I chose not to use PE22 this first time just to see if it was even going to be required, I wouldn't want an expense that I don't really need.

Ok so here's the process I followed:

• I pinched a bucket from my OH and marked out where I needed to fill the water to, so that when I put in the mold the water would come up to just over the top of the level of melted wax in the mold.  I marked these on the bucket itself so I wouldn't have to do it again.  
• Then I weighed out the amount of wax I needed (nearly 2kg of wax!) and started that melting away on my double boiler.
• I took my hurricane mold (I decided to do without the insert this time as I only wanted to use a photo) and put cooking spray on the inside of the mold just to ease the release of the candle from the mold, wiping it so there was only a residue left over.
• As the wax was nearly all melted, I took a wooden spatula (slice?) and placed that in my melting wax so I could have a warm spatula to hold the photo on the side of the mold. If I had used a cold spatula the photo would've stuck to the spatula rather than the side of the mold.
• I placed the hurricane mold in the oven as it was pretty cold (not sure if this is necessary, I'll be testing this further).
• Once the wax reached about 190F I poured the wax into the heated mold, leaving about half an inch gap from the top just to reduce chances of getting water into the wax.
• I then placed the mold in the water bath, weighting it down as it would float otherwise.
• I then waited for the walls of the hurricane to form. I was aiming for about half an inch but I overshot this a bit, so will have to keep a better eye on it next time.  Then I cut the "lid" or film of wax that had formed in the center of the hurricane candle, and poured the still melted wax back into the pouring jug, leaving it tipped straight down just to run out the remainder of the wax so it wouldn't pool at the bottom creating puddles. I didn't leave it long enough so ended up with a puddle or two.
• I placed my hurricane in the freezer just to speed it's cooling along, I don't really think that's necessary but I was impatient :)  Came out smooth and shiny, just how I was hoping for, but the top was a mess.  The inside was also sludgy, not 100% sure why so more experimenting needed.  I heated up a baking tray and placed the hurricane top down on the tray to melt & even up the top rim, then used a hot spoon to smooth the rim where it had become uneven. with more practice I think I'll be able to speed up this process and not need to do so much touch-up.

sludgy inside, with a puddle or two.

And this is the final product!

 Final product lit, best I can as it's still daylight.

Overall I think I'm reasonably pleased.  Conclusions are this 1) I need to use the PE22 to reduce the interior cracking. 2) Need to improve my ability to move the mold from being filled, into the waterbath.  Any suggestions for creating a wire harness or anything that would be useful would be gratefully received. 3) I also need to keep a sharp eye on it so it doesn't get so thick. More to come, watch this space!

More luminaries

A bit of another update, just to post my most recent efforts.  A friend of a friend requested 2 cream luminaries and I suggested that I'd picked and pressed some wild violets that I could try. She agreed, way hey :)

Lucky I'd ordered and received more wax as I was definitely running a bit low.  I followed the usual techniques that I've laid out earlier in the blog, and was reasonably pleased at how nice they came out, reasonably uniform in shape. Just differing a bit on size really.  The violets were pretty easy to embed into the wax and I have to say they look really great against these cream luminaries.

Just as a bit of a sidenote, if anyone is concerned about using water balloons (which I obviously have to burst to get the luminary free), these water balloons are biodegradable.

Here they are cooling and setting.

Here they are set up with their matching tealights, 3 are apple strudel and spice scented from Candleshack (can you tell I like this scent?) and Asian Pear & Plum from Scent Perfique, which compliments the apple really well.

And finally showing off my favorite of the bunch, which I gifted to my MIL.

Still getting a few things together before I can attempt the hurricane candle mold that I've got, but soon as I get my act together, I'll be showing some of my efforts for those. Watch this space! :)