Melted wax...What could go wrong?

Last week, in an effort to surprise my boyfriend, I decided that I could make candles to fill our home with wonderful scents and add some color to our table. The DIY channel made this look so easy and fast. We learned differently in my kitchen.

To get this adventure stated I went to my local Micheal's and picked up some soy wax, medium wicks, candle color blocks, oil scent, and mason jars. I was going to a "this county kitchen" vibe. I ended up using 2 pounds of soy wax (which turned out to not be enough). Also I should point out that I have a bad habit of not following direction and therefore the result would probably be a lot nicer if I learned to read those things. As a kid my dad always called directions "dumbrections" and insisted on figuring it out himself... But for my first candle making experience I am pretty happy with how they turned out.

Here is the step by step of this misadventure:

1.  I started with a medium sized pot that I added about 4 cups of water to and began to boil. Once the water was at a rolling boil I added a glass bowl that fit over the top of the pot. I added the wax pieces to the glass bowl and waited for the wax to melt. This process to a lot longer than I anticipated. About 45 minutes later the wax was all melted.

2. While the wax was melting I shaved off a couple of color flakes from the color blocks that I bought. I used green for one candle, a brown and green combo in another, and the third I used gold and red. Instead of melting and mixing the color I thought it would look more interesting to leave the flakes in the bottom of the jar and allow the hot wax to melt the color shavings so that the color would be more marbled.

3. After I added the color shavings to the mason jars I realized that I need to adhere the wicks to the bottom of the jars. I don't have a hot glue gun or crazy glue, so I looked around the house and I could find was pipe sealer that we used for our sub-pump replacement. It kinda worked but if I could do it all over again I would spend the five dollars and get the crazy glue.

4. With everything set up and the wax melted, I added the scent to the melted wax before pouring the wax into the mason jars. I used a vanilla scent oil. It smells wonderful and is really fresh and relaxing.

5. With the scent added, i poured the hot wax into the mason jars and then placed the jars in the freezer to encourage the wax to set quickly. This was probably not the best idea. As the wax set quickly from the outside in air bubble became present in the center of the candles. I am hopeful that this doesn't effect the candle's ability to burn but I guess we will find out.

Here is the finished product (I will try to take step by step pictures in the future)