To go with this week’s story The Ox-Cart Man, our craft for the week was making our own candles. Since working with hot wax really isn’t an option with young kiddos, I ordered a Natural Beeswax Candle kit from one of my favorite stores… A Toy Garden. I could not find anything local but fortunately Sonya ships super quick 🙂 and we got our supplies in just a couple days.
The kit came with 6 sheets of beeswax and wicks. The project was simple enough. Cut the wick slightly longer than the width of the beeswax. Place the wick along the edge at one end and carefully turn over the edge of the wax to hold it in place. Roll the wax slowly and tightly. You want room temp or slightly warmer wax to avoid cracking. The directions suggested using a hair dryer to warm the wax slightly. Our wax was fine at room temp in the sunny dinning room. Once rolled, hand press or roll the top edge firmer to tapper the top. Trim up the wick and tada… your very own candle! A Toy Garden also sells colored wax sheets that you can use to cut out shapes and such to decorate your candles if you would like. For our first go we were happy with au natural. They are the perfect candles for our nature table.
The girls really liked the smell of the beeswax… hence the silly photos. BTW – we were left with a waxy residue on the table. I would suggest using painting boards or maybe wax paper on the table if you would like to protect it.
