Testing out new jars in prep for Spring

Been a while since I posted last, and felt it was time to put a little update as to what I'm up to.

While things are a bit quieter, I'm beginning to test the jars I want to use to create my scented soy candles. I had originally started with an 8oz & 4oz jam jar, which I was initially pleased with. They seemed to burn well with the right wick, and gave a reasonable hot throw for their size.

However after some consideration, I decided that I wanted a larger jar with a wider mouth so it might have the potential to give off an even better hot throw.  And these would last much longer in comparison with these smaller jars.

That's where these 330ml "dip" jars come in.  They're somewhat wider, but also a bit shorter than my 8oz jars in comparison.  I'm very pleased with their shape, so had a go using one of my tried and tested scents in 3 jars using 3 different size wicks to see which one would work best.

So far the testing is going very well and I'm hoping to have these ready for sale by Springtime. I'm planning to test a variety of popular floral scents alongside some of my favorite scents that I've tested previously.  I'm very excited for these and I hope that they'll be very popular in the months to come.

I'm also going to be gearing up to create my springtime Hurricanes and Luminaries which I hope will also be a great compliment to my scented candles.  My wildflower Hurricane (pictured bellow) still needs more refining but I think will be beautiful once my technique is perfected.  Each of these comes with a scented tealight, and I'm open to custom orders and ideas.  All flowers are sourced locally and pressed by myself before being placed on my products, so these are a strictly seasonal product.

My personalised Hurricanes are available year round and are a perfect choice if you're looking for a unique but personal gift to a special someone.  If you've got a Wedding, Anniversary, Engagement, a special Pet, a new Baby, or want to remember that special someone who's passed, do get in touch and I can help you out!

More news to come soon, I hope you'll stop by my Facebook page if you see anything you like.  Also my Website is a great place to see all of my different creations all in one place.

Personalised Hurricanes

Hello again!

Since my order books are now open, I thought I would add a few more photos and a bit more information about my Personalised Hurricane candles.

My Hurricane wax shells, made out of high-melt temp paraffin wax. Hurricane candles are reusable and long lasting. You do not melt the wax shell itself, but a scented tealight placed inside the shell is what gets burned, so you can reuse the hurricane shell over and over again.

The inside of a Hurricane shell

I'll be making these to order, so all I'll need from the person interested in ordering is the photograph they wish me to use emailed to me at jen@welshcandlecreations.co.uk , and the scent choice for their tealight which is included in the price.  The photograph needs to be of good quality and a reasonable size to be used, so I can adjust it as required.

To give a sense of scale I've taken a photo of the sample Hurricane I've made today with some of my scented tealights.  They're of an ordinary size that you'd find anywhere, so that should give you an idea of how tall these are.

And of course I have to show the Hurricane lit, I think it looks absolutely amazing and would be a beautiful addition to anybody's home.  Remember that these do not melt while in use if used properly, and if it's summer and you're not in a candle-burning mood - why not fill it with water and use it as a flower vase?  The wax is impermeable so it won't leak or damage the hurricane.

I hope this has helped clarify a bit more about my Personalised hurricanes.  If you're interested in ordering one, either get in touch with me via the email I provided above, find me through Facebook (facebook.com/welshcandlecreations) or I'm also on Twitter (twitter.com/welshcandles.

Christmas Luminaries

I'm due for another update!

I decided for this Christmas that I was going to do 4 different carving designs, embellished with a bit of bling and sparkle by including some rhinestones.  Most are tiny ones, but the ones on the Christmas Bells luminary are 3 red Swarovski rhinestone crystals which are just gorgeous.  I'm hoping to also do a range of 3 colors, including this rich red, will be deep blue and green, reminiscent of christmas baubles.

I'm generally pleased with how these have gone, though for the final 2 designs I did add too much PE22 to my white layers and it was hard to get the red & white layers separated so I'm going to have to do those ones again.  But overall I think they've gone well and I hope people will enjoy them !

Halloween in full

After a very positive response to my mock up halloween luminary yesterday, I decided to go ahead and mix up an appropriate orange color for my pumpkin luminary today and have a real go at it.  My challenge this time around was to create 2 different layers of color for these luminaries. First layers would be in plain white to represent the inside of the "pumpkin" and create a bit of contrast.  The final layers were a nice orange pumpkin color to lend it a bit of authenticity.

Considering I'd never done a 2 tone luminary before, I'm really quite pleased with these, and reactions so far have been very positive.  I intend to make enough to take to the craft fayre with me, and then enough to be able to sell a few to family/friends and some people through FB. I hope you all enjoy these as much as I do!

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.