New Experience

I poured two homemade votive candles this morning. Sweet Pea scented. Liz loves candles and we burn them quite often, both for the scent and for the ambiance. Store-bought candles are expensive though, and lately the ones in the discounted and clearance sections (translation: affordable) have been remarkably bad when it comes to smell. Some of the new designer scents should be collectively named "gym sock".

We researched the idea of making our own, and it turns out to be cost-effective and simple. Assuming, of course, that you don't want to get too fancy with them, and we don't. Simple votives and small pillar candles, maybe some container versions in the future after we get our feet waxed (to mangle a metaphore).

To get started, we bought 10lbs of wax, a scent sampler (10 of our choice, plus a bonus they threw in), a wick sampler, a few bottles of wax dye, a pour pitcher, three votive molds and two pillar molds. Less than a hundred dollars, and a big percentage of that was shipping. Based on what I used this morning on two simple votives, I should be able to make some 100 small ones or 30 larger candles from our starter supplies. The only thing we'll need to replenish then is wicks, more colors if we want, wax (about a buck a pound) and more molds if we want more variety. The big advantage I see is that these aren't something you go through quickly, so it's not like we're going to be making candles constantly to replace what's already gone.

I think I'm going to enjoy this.