We love candles in every room. Besides burning candles in the living room and bedroom, we burn yellow candles in our office to help those ideas fly freely, and we have purple candles in the bathroom to make bathing a more spiritual experience. Believe me, after a long day at work, it is very relaxing to slip into a sweetly scented healing bath, with some patcholi incense and several purple candles burning. And a candle burning in the kitchen seems to make the work go more quickly. You may disagree when I say it makes the food taste better, but try it sometime. When we found ourselves spending over $50 monthly on candles and incense, we decided to try our hand at candlemaking. So far we have only made container candles, but since we had tons of leftover seven day candle glasses around, it seemed the most logical (and easiest) choice. You can use practically any glass or metal container to pour the wax into, forage around thrift stores and granny's attic for unique containers.

Easy Candlemaking

• 10 pound block of wax
• wicking and wick holders
• candle colouring (ok we use crayons)
• candle scents or essential oils
• optional : herbs and/or flowers
• a pencil or skewer to hold wick straight
• double boiler (try a large coffee can in a pot of water)
• ladle for pouring wax into container
• containers!

Please be careful when working with wax. Never melt over direct heat or it can burst into flame (or so I've heard; I've always used the double boiler) First, prepare your containers. Slide the wicking into the wickholder and tie around a pencil to hold it steady. When the wax starts melting, dip out a tiny bit to hold the wickholder onto the bottom of your container. Break off a chunk of wax and put into your double boiler or coffee can in a pot of water. Once it is melted, add your colouring. I love taking crayons and mixing different blends, so I never get the same results. Add your scent, stir, and carefully ladle into the container. Let cool and you are ready to go.