How To Make A Button
This is why it is so important to make sure the wax is cool enough not to burn anyone. Let the candle sit and finish cooling while you begin to melt wax for the next candle. When the shells are filled and the candles inserted, let them cool. When the wax is solid you can peel the shell off just like shelling a hard boiled egg.
This is a good part of the activity for smaller children. Setting the candles on a saucer is a good way to safely light them. If you want, you can make the bottom flatter by cutting and scraping the round end. Another way to securely stand the egg candle up is to put it on a bottle cap, and then put that on the saucer. If you want lighter, more Eastery colors, use a smaller piece of crayon. You can always add a little more crayon to the melting wax if you want a deeper color.
I used almost half of a crayon each to get these rich holiday colors. You can also glue on small decorations - a good idea if two children made the same colored candles, and want to be sure to help light their own. Advent can be especially significant when you and your children made the candles you light every week. Christmas candles might be red and green, Hanukkah candles blue and white.
These are great for an Easter craft; they are fun to make, and you can certainly have egg shaped candles any time of the year; consider red white and blue candles for the 4th of July. Thanksgiving is another holiday when these might be nice decorations, and the candles could be many different fall colors. Finally, although the egg is not really pumpkin shaped, you could make orange egg candles and use black marker to make a jack-o-lantern face on each one.
Making a face is another part of the activity where your child can have all the fun they want. Enjoy your candles. As your children get older, you will feel comfortable with letting them do more in the process. The Hubpages article Ostara Crafts: How to Make Egg Candles follows a very similar process to make candles in an eggshell mold, although it is a bit less child friendly.
It provides a description of how to make striped candles, which can be used in the process described in this hub. She suggests waiting about 20 minutes before adding an additional color of wax, so the colors don't mix. Unless you are pouring in fairly hot wax for the second layer, you probably do not need to wait that long.
As well, a little mixing may be attractive where the layers meet. You may want to use smaller cans to melt the wax for layers, or plan on using a layer of the additional colors in multiple candles. In this case you could melt as much wax for the color as you would if you were making a solid candle of that color.
Because you are melting wax in small cans, if you have extra wax, just let the can cool, and store it until you want to use some of that color again. Once the wax is solid, you could put several cans into a gallon size zip-lock bag to keep dust out of the can. If you have a can with left over wax in a deep color, when you go to use it again, you can lighten the color by adding plain paraffin to the can while you are remelting it.
You can also add a piece of crayon in another color with the added paraffin to make a different and related color. Be sure to mix the extra wax and any additional color thoroughly with your popsicle stick or skewer for a consistent color. Sign in or sign up and post using a HubPages Network account. 0 of 8192 characters usedPost CommentNo HTML is allowed in comments, but URLs will be hyperlinked. Comments are not for promoting your articles or other sites.
