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Back when I was home schooling, as part of our Farmer Boy unit, we made candles. In the book Almanzo talks about taking his lantern out to do chores and walk to his room at night. We discussed how they didn’t have electricity for lighting and instead used candles. We talked about how their method to make candles was different than how we were making candles. I think Farm Kid1 got the idea & I hope this makes the book a bit more relatable.
SUPPLIES
The supplies are fairly simple. The necessities are wax, wick & a mold. We used a waxy coated dixie cup as our mold. Our extra goodies were crayons for color & liquid apple scent.
MELTING WAX
Next, fill a pot with a couple inches of water & set it over a high stove top setting. Once boiling, turn the heat down a bit. Place a bar of wax & crayon pieces in a tin can & place the can in the hot water to melt the wax. The crayons melted quicker than the bar of wax.
THE MOLD
Start by cutting a length of wick about 3″ taller than your mold. Tape one end of the wick to the bottom of your mold & wrap the other end around a pencil. I found that we needed to tape the wick to the pencil or it wanted to unwind. I also cut notches out of the dixie cup to hold the pencil.
Using a pot holder, pour the melted hot wax into your mold.
Now wait for the wax to harden. Our one box of wax made 8 little candles.
FINISHING THE CANDLE
After the wax is hard, peel off the mold and voila a candle. I love how most of the crayon wax settled toward the bottom of the candle giving it a gradient appearance.
Trim the wick to about half an inch.
