Craft Night

One gardener's observations, discoveries and random thoughts whilst simultaneously worshipping and dallying in a Cape Cod garden. "A garden," said Ralph Waldo Emerson, "is like those pernicious machineries which catch a man's coatskirt or his hand, and draw in his arm, his leg and his whole body to irresistable destruction."

Craft Night

28 February 2007

There’s nothing like a cold winter’s night for some home crafting, and March is always a perfect time for trying something new. So I finally broke out the candle maker I got for Christmas. It’s kind of cool, and allows me to recycle the remainders of old candles…which I hate to just throw away.

The candle maker is kinda cool. You chop up your bits of wax (sorting by color, naturally) and load them into the hopper up top. After it has heated up a bit and you sort out the odd bits of wick and ash, you open a valve and fill the mold, which waits down below.

Here’s my first candle. I was pretty happy with it, as a first effort, though making the different layers is a little more time-consuming, since you have to let each layer cool a bit before adding the next. Each candle is more-or-less all evening project, but the result is pretty neat!

UPDATE: 3/06/07: A week later, I’ve made four candles, all of them displayed here. I’m on a bit of a hiatus now, as I’ve used up all the wick that came with the kit, and have to wait now until I’ve made a run to the craft store in Hyannis.