I have to admit that I have been wanting to melt down some crayons and attempt to make my own candle for quite a while now! St. Patricks day seemed like the perfect opportunity to give this a try! With fun themes like shamrocks, golden coins and rainbows there are plenty of opportunities to personalize this St Patricks day candle project to fit any decorating theme you might have.
While our family doesn’t celebrate St. Patricks day very much I still find it fun to do a few small things to celebrate. These smaller holidays are a great way to break up the months and bring a bit of cheer to your home. Plus it’s a great excuse to make green food and fun crafts! These DIY candles were a bit time consuming to make and probably not the most child-friendly craft sing it involves working with hot wax but it was still a great bit of fun and a project I’m glad I tried!
DIY Dollar Store St. Patricks Day Candle
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St. Patricks Day Candle – Supplies
From The Dollar Store
From Home
- Silicone or glass containers to melt your wax in
- Oven or microwave
- Oven Mitts or gloves to handle hot containers
- Pens or Pencils to stabilize Wicks
- 2 Washers to weigh down wicks
St. Patricks Day Candle – Directions
Making a Plan
The first step of any project is coming up with a design in your head. It’s always important to have at least some idea of what you’re looking for before stating – even if you end up changing things later on. Originally I wasn’t sure if I wanted to make 1 or 2 candles – and I didn’t know if I wanted to go with straight green or rainbow. So I bought extra crayons and a second votive holder, just in case. In the end, I chose to do just one candle and a rainbow pattern.
It turns out that you need an awful lot of crayons to fill a votive holder, so even the extra crayons I bought would not have been enough to make two full candles! This was also why I chose a rainbow pattern, it would have taken quite a few more crayon packs to have enough green to fill even the smaller votive. Keep both of these facts in mind when you are planning your projects, I bought three 48 packs of crayons at my dollar store and I highly suggest doubling this for a solid colored candle or if you plan to make2 smaller rainbow ones.
Preparing Your Wick
Before you start melting the wax for your candle proper you need to prepare your wick. Start by tying a small washer to the end of your string. This will weigh the wick down so that it will be relatively straight as it goes down through your wax. Drop the washer into the bottom of your votive and measure out how long your string needs to be. I suggest cutting your string a bit longer than necessary so that you can tie it to a pencil and stabilize it while you pour in your wax.
When you have measured the appropriate length of your wick and weighed it down sufficiently you should cover it in a thin layer of wax to help make it stiffer so that it doesn’t flop over while burning. To treat the wicks I melted some of the white crayons and dipped the entire washer and wicks into the melted white wax using pencils as dippers and then letting it dry while hanging over the rims of the votives (At this point I still wasn’t sure which votive I planned to use so I prepared both)
Prepare the Crayons
In order to melt the crayons, you have to spend a bit of time removing all the paper sorting the colors and breaking them into smaller pieces. While there are many methods online for removing the paper from crayons I found it simpler to just use the old fashioned kid-tested method of peeling it off with my fingers! Anyone who has ever given a young child a box of crayons knows that this method 100% works!
I used some old silicone molds to hold my crayon pieces for melting. these molds are no longer used for food and have long been relegated to craft projects as I have replaced them with different sizes for the kitchen. They worked great but since they have a soft side can be a bit difficult to manage while pouring. I expect you could also use some old jars or even some oven-safe tin foil muffin cups.
Melt and Pour Wax
There are many ways to melt the wax. You can use a microwave a double broiler system on your stovetop or your oven. Since I wanted a way to keep my wax warm as I rotated through all the colors – and didn’t want to spend forever melting each color one at a time I chose to melt my wax in the oven. At 350 degrees it took about 10 minutes to melt the silicone cups filled with broken crayon bits. the oven stayed warm enough afterward that if the wax started to cool too much while I was pouring and waiting in between the layers I could pop them back in for a few minutes.
With your pencil and washer holding your wick in place pour your way in. If you are creating a solid candle then you can pour it all in at once. If you are creating a layer or rainbow effect then each layer must be done individually.
Pour your first color into your votive. If you want to make a wavy pattern to your layers or a slanted look tip your votive to make the wax flow how you want and allow it to cool and harden. Crayon wax hardens pretty quickly so you won’t have to wait long!
Continue to add layers until your happy with your candle and your votive is filled to your satisfaction! Trim your wick when you’re finished and enjoy it!
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