As Halloween approaches...

Since my first craft fayre is going to be near Halloween, I thought that it might be sort of fun to create a Halloween-themed luminary to fit the occasion.  Now I've carved plenty of pumpkins growing up in the states before moving here to the UK, and even done a few here, but I've never carved a luminary before so wasn't quite sure how to approach it.

I wanted to begin this whole idea by creating a "mock up" of what I had in mind.  I did not color the wax I used for this luminary on purpose, as I didn't want to create a lot of wax that I couldn't use for any other purpose if nobody liked the idea.  I'll choose a nice rich orange on the final product.  Anyway, I started by creating a template on paper, so I could use that to trace an outline of what I wanted to carve on the luminary itself.  Then, using my heat gun, I heated up a sharp crafting knife to carve out the luminary. I had to reheat the knife quite a lot to accomplish this.  I feel if I'd taken more time at it, I might have gotten a cleaner result, but as a starting point I thought it wasn't too bad at all.

Responses so far have been pretty positive, but still trying to get a feel as to whether people like the idea or not. So if you can, either stop by my Facebook page or the Craft Forum where I've also posted, to give me feedback on what you think!

On to another design

My goal for my hurricanes this season was to come up with 2 season representative designs for my hurricane candles, that people could look at and say "Yeah, that's Autumn!".  I think I've accomplished that in the two I've done recently.  The previous blog post I did shows the orange/cinnamon/star anise hurricanes I was doing before and succeeded with, and this one I'll focus on the autumn leaves hurricane I've created in the past two days.

The first one I did yesterday was the first I'd tried with real autumn leaves, and you better believe they were VERY contrary, they just would not stay where I wanted them to.  I did my best getting them to stay and gave it a go.  Needless to say it wasn't 100% what I had in mind, I was frustrated that the leaves weren't as close to the front as I'd hoped. But when lit up it looked amazing, loads of layers which showed up really well.

However I got spectacular response to that particular hurricane, so much so that I decided to have another go at it today. This time I took far more time getting the leaves "just so", and have them stay in place.  I am so pleased with this particular one, the colors are wonderful and it glows really well while lit. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do!

My next plan now is to make a few more of these for stock to sell at the Sparkle charity craft fayre which will be in Cwmbran on Oct 26th, where I'll finally be selling!  I hope if you're in the area of Cwmbran here in Wales, that you'll stop by and see my work in person :)

Repeatable results

So today I attempted to replicate the success I had with my hurricane from last week.  I went through the same process, improving my method of placing the mold into the water bath with a bit of messy DIY.  And I managed to come up with the same results I had last week, which is fantastic news!  No two hurricanes will ever look the same, and I'm quite pleased with these.

My next hurricane should have some autumn leaves in them, we'll see how that adventure goes!

A photo of the hurricane from today

A photo of the two side by side, 1st attempt on the left, newest one on the right.

More luminaries!

Finally made a start on stock to sell, and sticking to my autumn theme at the moment.  I'm pretty happy with these for the most part, apart from the ivy leaves one, I feel like it needs a 3rd leaf, and maybe a stem for the one missing a stem. Other than that I'm rather pleased with these.  These will be for sale very soon!

Success!!

After much trial and error, I finally have completed a hurricane that I'd be happy to sell to anyone - finally!  Been using the same method I've brought up a few times in previous posts, and I used Oranges, Cinnamon Sticks, and Star-anise in this one.  This one, along with others, will be available for sale soon!

Another hurricane, still not quite a success.

Another day, and another trial to get these hurricanes right.  I love embedding things in these hurricanes, I just wish that I could see further into the wax!  If I could get my hands on that transparency additive they sell in the US I'd be so happy, but thus far unable to find someone here who sells it.

Anyway, with this particular hurricane, I tried yet another method of embedding, which was to pour the wax into the mold, place it into the water bath, and as quickly as I can (using long tweesers) placing the items into the wax directly as soon as a wall started to form. Sadly I didn't move fast enough (or this method just won't work) as the items I placed were not close enough to the surface to show properly.

Now don't get me wrong, I like that the end result is this nice, clean hurricane that's hiding all these things underneath, so  you can only see it properly once it's lit. But I don't know if it's autumnal enough, or quite what I had in mind.  More practice needed :(

Back in the saddle

Hey everyone!

Haven't fallen off the face of the earth, in fact I only moved locations on the face of the earth for 3 weeks, I headed back to the US to visit my family over there.  Had a really great time, but it's taken me a bit to get organised and now I'm set to take on candlemaking once again.

I started off today by making a start on getting stock together in prep for selling, mainly sticking to the autumnal theme at the moment, though will also be making christmassy things in the background all set for christmas.  My plan as it stands right now is to make a good number of autumnal luminaries, seasonal tealights to go with them, a good two dozen scented candles in two different sizes, also in seasonal scents, and I'm also going to be tackling some autumnal & christmassy hurricanes.  I'm so excited!

Anyway here's the 4 I started with today, they're not too bad if I do say so myself. However, I can't decide of the leaves I put on these are too big? Haven't had much feedback yet.

And that's basically it for now, will make another post when I got more to share :)