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Handmade beeswax candles are fantastic. First, they don’t contain all of the toxic ingredients you might find from typical candles sold at your local grocery store, which means they’re perfect for those of us who are sensitive to perfumes, paraffin, and other harmful ingredients. Second, making your own candles at home is usually a lot cheaper than buying them pre-made, especially if you reuse the unused beeswax from old candles. And third, you can customize your candles by leaving them as-is, or by adding essential oils for scented candles.
One of the main reasons I like making candles at home is because handmade candles make the perfect gift. So, with the holidays coming up, I’ve decided to whip up a big batch of beeswax candles to give to friends and family this year for Christmas. They’ll go really well with some of my other handmade gift items, and they’re super fun to package with pretty paper, twine, and personalized tags and labels.
Simple Beeswax Candles
Materials:
• Water
• A medium saucepan
• 1 4-cup measuring glass
• Beeswax (in pellet or block form)
• Essential oils (optional)
• Small glass jars or candle molds, clean and dry
• Cotton candle wicks
• Skewers or chopsticksInstructions:
1. Prepare all of your ingredients. If your beeswax is in block form, cut it into cubes for faster melting.
2. Pour water into your saucepan until it is 2 inches high, and place on the stove over medium heat.
3. Place beeswax cubes or pellets into 4-cup measuring glass. Then place measuring glass in saucepan until the beeswax has completely melted.
4. Once beeswax melts, carefully remove from saucepan, and place on the counter. Add 50-100 drops of essential oil, or until you are happy with the strength of the scent (optional).
5. While still in complete liquid form, pour the beeswax into your small jars, making sure to leave at least ½” headspace.
6. Place your one wick in each jar, centering it as best as possible. Use chopsticks or wooden skewers to hold the wicks in place until the wax has dried.
7. Once the wax has dried completely, snip the tops of your wicks to about 1” height.
8. Light wicks, and enjoy!
To package my handmade beeswax candles, I used cupcake toppers, twine, and personalized tags and labels in my new favorite style, Chalkboard.
Used In This Project:
- Circle Labels • I chose the “Chalkboard” style in Tuxedo.
- Small Diamond Tags • I chose the “Chalkboard” style in Tuxedo.
More homemade gift ideas from Lindsay:
Knitted Coasters Gingerbread Cookies Mulling Spices DIY Christmas Paper Garland
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Lindsay is a writer/blogger from Oregon who loves crafting, cooking, gardening, and simple living. You can find her writing about all of this and more on her blog A Wooden Nest.
A pleasant way to brighten our homes, especially during the cooler and darker time of the year, is with decorative candles. We can easily design homemade candles to be precisely the shape, size, color and scent of our desire. Creative post!
Thanks Nanda!
where do you get good beeswax and what essential oils make for the “smelliest” candles?
Hi Amy. I usually just order my beeswax through amazon, but if you can find a local source (maybe a beekeeper in your community), that would probably be the best option. As for making the candles smelly, you would have to experiment with essential oils to find which scents come out most for you, but if your goal is to make a smelly candle, you might want to look into fragrance oils instead of essential oils. They contain chemicals, but they’re also a lot more potent.
Awesome post! How many 4 oz candles does this make?
Hey Nicole – I was able to make about 6 4oz candles.
I appreciate your wordpress template, where did you download it through?
Hi there! This post couldn’t be written any better! Reading through this post reminds me of my previous room mate! He always kept chatting about this. I will forward this page to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing!
Hi, Lindsay,
Where did you get your cupcake toppers from ? the one I have is too small, cannot cover the glass jar. your toppers’ bottom is so wide. Please reply to me. thank you !
Hi Amy! My guess is Lindsay probably picked them up at a specialty shop such as Sur La Table or Williams Sonoma. If you’re unable to find them I would suggest using a kraft paper or a fabric to mimic the look 🙂