Make your own candles!

We love DIY projects and these candles are no different! It was surprisingly easy to do and really fun!

Sometimes it’s cheaper to just buy items than DIY, but that was not the case for these little cuties.

We made 100 candles for $91! They can be made well in advance, so they are a great option to use as at a wedding or event, to be given as a gift, or just to decorate your home.

Here’s a step-by-step tutorial of our version of DIYing candles

What you’ll need…

Most of these products can be purchased through Amazon, at a local craft or grocery store, or from an online retailer. You may also have many of these products lying around your house!

votives or a vessel for your candles
wax
wicks
toothpicks
candle making pitcher
candle scent
wooden spoon
transparent tape
scissors

We purchased 10 lbs of wax and divided it into 1 lb bags (you cannot pour all of it in the candlemaker pitcher at once). Each 1lb bag of wax filled eight of the mini votives we purchased.

Ready, set, go!

1. Prep your votives. Place your 3″ wicks into the votives. For each votive, take two of your toothpicks and tape together one of the ends. Then, place your wick between the open end of the two toothpicks. By putting the wick between the two toothpicks and resting the toothpicks on top of the votive, you can keep your wick in place as you pour the wax.

2. Melt the wax. Turn your burner to medium-low heat and pour 1 lb of wax into the candlemaker pitcher. Be sure to watch the wax so that it doesn’t burn. It will melt rather quickly. Stir occasionally.

3. Add scent. Once it is completely melted, pour in about .5 oz of your candle scent and stir. Set aside and let is cool for about five minutes. We chose vanilla because we used white wax and we did not have to buy any dye to color the candle’s wax. Fewer ingredients = less moolah!

4. Pour the wax into your votives. Once the wax has cooled a little bit, pour it into your votives. Leave about 1/4 of an inch from the top.

5. Let wax solidify. Leave the candles still so the wax can set and turn solid (be sure they are on a flat surface or the wax will harden at an angle).

6. Trim your wicks. We trimmed each wick about 1/2 inch.

Yay! You made some mini candles!

Now, if you want to wrap them up as a favor or a gift, we have you covered!

You’ll need…

cardstock (available in every color of the rainbow)
baker’s twine (we like colorful baker’s/butcher’s twine, but you can also get natural)
scissors (the scissors pictured here are Kate Spade)
hole puncher
mini clear treat bags
stamp (we had Capital Society create these custom stamps for us)
ink pad (we purchased our ink pads through Capital Society with our stamps – because bundling is often less expensive!)
confetti (we chose to DIY our confetti, so check out the steps below before purchasing)

We had all of these supplies on hand so it cost us $0. Woot!

Step-by-step instructions

Stamp or write on the cardstock and then cut it out into whatever shape you like
Punch a hole into each corner of the cardstock
Cut a small length of baker’s twine, just enough to tie the mini bags and loop through your cardstock. We chose to tie each one in a knot and have a little extra to hang. Once you’ve done one, it’s easy to measure the rest
Sprinkle confetti into the mini bags. If you do not have any confetti, don’t worry – you do not have to buy any! Check your house and see if you have any kind of mixed paper; you can even look for spam mail and use that! Cut up the paper up to make some confetti. You can also use a hole-puncher if you’d like circular confetti. We cut up different colored construction paper to make our confetti!
Place one candle into each bag
Loop the baker’s twine through the hole in the cardstock and tie around the bags to close them

Now, you not only made candles, but you also turned them into a cute gift!

You could use these as wedding favors, small birthday gifts, Mother’s Day gifts, bat/bar mitzvah gifts, thank-you gifts – even teacher appreciation gifts! They work for pretty much everything you can think of! Everyone loves a candle, after all. 🙂

Enjoy!

DIY: How to Craft Candles and Create Gifts at Home