Recycled Wax

We use IKEA Fenomen candles for night time lighting in the living room, which naturally produces rather a lot of waste wax. I thought to reuse it and so have been collecting all the wax from burned out candles.

I began by adding small amounts of wax to existing candles, but this had the effect of extinguishing them from having too much wax and drowning the wick.

I struck on the idea of using the moulds from my resin lampshade making as candle moulds, buying wicks from a local craft shop for 20p each. The wax was melted in a pan, poured into three moulds and the wicks added as the wax was solidifying.

However, the wicks can bend slightly half way down the candle, resulting in a lopsided burn and a very short candle life. Also, then the wax is setting, a concave dip appears in the centre.

To over come this, I let the first pour solidify and then added more wax to top the mould up. Once set, I removed the candles from the mould and drilled a thin hole down the exact centre, threading the wick down the hole. 

Success! I made a whole bunch of them.