Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Rollin' rollin' rollin'...

On a whim i decided to hunt out some beeswax... and (despite there being no mention on their website) on one of our journeys we popped into a lovely honey shop (with live bee display that our kids love, and all sorts of delicious honey related products - i want to try the honey icecreams!), and whaddaya know, beeswax! i ended up with a huge 600g blob of golden sweet-smelling stuff, but also grabbed some of the wax sheets to have a play with first :-)

it's very easy really to make rolled candles - i softened one end of the sheets first & sealed the wick in to make it easier for the kids to roll, and then it was just a matter of warming them over the heater (or you can use a hairdryer)-
then when it is quite floppy & turns dark and translucent you start to roll!
just slowly, gently, and remembering to try to keep it straight-
then when you get to the end of the sheet, you warm it again & roll it to seal the end!
i then held the end of the candle over the heater, then gently squished it onto a flat surface, to meld the layers together & make it stand up nicely.

ta da!!
and of course you can decorate them using left over scraps, or modeling/decorating wax :-)

so far ours have been used for making 2D shapes & patterns, and as strawberries, oranges, broccoli, water & cake (obviously struggling a bit to think of something purple & edible!), and perhaps eventually they'll be used as candles too!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm so glad you mentioned the honey centre. We have a bugs study planned for next term and I had no idea they had a live bee display. It will be the perfect trip to go with the study!
Can I ask how much the wax sheets and the wicks cost?

Nova said...

yeah the shop has a whole wall of bees! plus the corridor through to the cafe has a window with hives just outside too :) i think the sheets were $1.20ea & wick was $1/m - we got four candles per sheet :) i'm busy trying to dissect my big chuck of solid wax right now!

Anne (I should be sleeping) said...

They look very cool.
And looks like the kids had a great time making them.
I love candles... Just wish I had a tidy enough house that I could light them and not be scared of going up in flames ;)

Plingie said...

I remember making these at school and they smell DEVINE. I love the smell of them burning.