DIY WAX DIPPED GRUNGY CANDLES

A while back at the auction house, I won four large totes of nothing but candles. I mean little candles, big candles, tea lights and all. I gave $7.00 per tote. Just take a look at these totes below.

Seriously, there's layers of candles in each. So I know I have enough for crafts for a while.

So to get started selling some for profit from my $7.00 totes, I decided to grungy up a batch of them.

I've done it a few different ways before, 

found here with rolling the candles in melted wax,

 and here with the Modge podge method.

  

But this time I wanted a faster way, so I decided to use my candle warmer and an old candle to just dip these in. This will give them a smooth and grungy look.

Oh, I've done this dipping in wax method before with the cinnamon, grungy candy canes too!

But now onto the Wax dipped, grungy candles.

 Just dip the candle down in the melted wax,

 then give it a quick roll in some cinnamon.

And dip it again to set the wax in!

Then just sit it on some wax paper to dry.

I repeated the process on some to give it a more grungy, primitive look. Others I didn't.

And that's it.

How super simple is that?  And I think they look super cute.

Here's a few more pics to see how different the colors turned out.

Oh, the candle in a jar that I melted to dip these in was a Fall scented candle, (I can't remember the name,) but it was a melted dark brown.

 I even dipped these long, skinny ones.  But I had to dip one end at a time to get it all coated by using the dipping wax jar.

Remember, if you're gonna use the jar of melted wax also,

just DIP, ROLL and DIP again to set it in.

That's it!

Sorry, right now I don't have any pics of these packaged up. But I think I'm gonna price the votives a pack of 2 for $1.50 or so.  

The grungy tealights maybe 4 for a $1.50 and the tall skinny ones probably 2 for $1.50.  

However I do it, I'm sure to make tons of profit from my $7.00 totes!

Hope this gives ya some ideas and

DOLLAR STORE PRIMITIVE CANDLE Makeover

I picked up these cute, Fall themed candles today at the Dollar General.

These are 3 oz Jars for only $1.00 each

And this is how they turned out:

Their scents are Creamy Pumpkin Pie and Candied Maple Sugar!

Ummmm right?

I knew I could throw a touch of prim on these to spruce them up somehow.

Especially with such yummy scents.

And so here is how I did them.

For the more brown colored candles, the Candied Maple Sugar, I used some closely colored construction paper in a similar brown. I cut a strip wide enough to cover up the existing label.

Like so, and just wrap it around the candle and overlap just enough to cover it.

Cut off the excess. 

Then I decided to get out my black ink and stamps

and my letter stamps.  

 Don't worry, if you don't have stamps and such, you could always use a black permanent marker and free hand some on. Or maybe print out cute words onto the brown paper beforehand! Here's one lable I free handed with an inkpen.

Two pics up, you will see I also used the letter stampers to stamp the candle name onto a Grungy Hang Tag that I made with this recipe.

Here, I stamped the paper strips with the willow tree stamp (that I bought on eBay.)

 To attach the brown stamped paper to the jars,I used E-6000 glue instead of hot glue.

 The reason I used E-6000 glue was if the candle is used, when the wax gets hot, if you use a glue gun, chances are the hot glue dobs will come off. And with the E-6000 it kinda holds forever.

Then for one of them I had a bit of cute fabric. I cut it the size to cover the label and also e-6000 glued it on.

Once I had it on, I thought about stamping the name of the candle onto a smaller piece of brown paper and then ripping it to fit.  

To give the label a worn and torn look like so.

 I REALLY like how that torn label turned out.

Then I just used a bit more e-6000 glue to stick it right onto the fabric.

And then I finished it off with a little rusty brown star that I tied to the top with some brown and white bakers twine. Jute brown string would work or just about anything.

And then here is another that I was working on with the willow tree stamp.

I ended up putting the hand written label on as a hang tag.

So if I used something you don't have on these Dollar Store candles, just improvise and use something you do have on hand.

When it comes to making things primitive style, you really can't go wrong!

I have to say, I really like the plain, brown, stamped labels!

Which ones do you like the best?

Wooden Legs Make Great Candles

Today I made a very VERY simple set of primitive wood candles. Well, their just for looks since there's no actual light or flame. But they were cheap, cheap as in FREE and very easy to make.

I started off the day by cleaning out my neice and nephews' playhouse we built for them here. Well, there was an old kitchen play setthat had the sink/stove combo that had to go.

It was old and weathered from being out in the elements for about 3 years. Didn't look anything like the pic above when we first got it. I managed to save these blue, wooden legs off them:

There were four. I didn't know exactly what to do with them, but I brought them in anyways and threw most of the rest of the kitchen play set away.

Then I started painting them black and thought, "hum, they'd make cute fake candles." So I painted them all black and added some primitive styled stars and painted the edges a bit.

I had some flame tips saved that had came off a set of flicker candles that got broke when we moved. They were just plastic pieces shaped like a flame:

I took a small flat nail and drove it in the top of the wooden leg. And used that to slip the fake flame over. It didn't hold great, so I stuck a shot of hot glue up in the flame and then stuck it back over the nail and wa~la. Tight hold.

And that's it. A cute set of primitive styled, wooden candles for free.

TIP: Ya'll keep an eye out for wooden legs off of toys or old pieces of furniture. You can make numerous amounts of crafts with them. And if you go buy them plain at Lowes or a hardware store, you'd be surprised at the cost of plain wooden legs!

DIY GRUBBY VOTIVES AND TEALIGHTS with Homespun

 

Today I turned these plain votives from Biglots:

into these cute grubby votives with homespun and buttons:

(sorry the pics aren't so great, I was in a hurry and had hot wax on everything! lol)

How I did so, coming soon. Right now I need to go clean up my mess lol.
Okay, so back now and everything is cleaned up.

If you want to make these, this is what I did.
(Please be extremely careful, this melted wax can scald your skin!)

1. First off, go buy you a box of cheap, plain votives at Big Lots. Case of 24 for around $6.00 there.
2. Melt you some old candles or wax, any colors, in a candle warmer and have it ready for use.
3. Mix a bottle of cinnamon and bottle of nutmeg in a tin foil pan. The cinnamon and nutmeg usually turn out brownish in the end. So you need not worry about the color wax you've melted to use.
4. Be sure to do all this with wax paper underneath!
5. Now you're ready for the messy part.... CAREFULLY dip some of the hot wax out in a dipper or whatever you can find to fit, and pour it into the mixture of cinnamon and nutmeg.
6. Wait about 45 seconds or so for it to thicken a bit, not much, just a bit, and then start rolling your plain votive around in it. Cakeing the wax onto the lil votive. Sometimes I use my hands, sometimes I use the old spoons you see in the pic. 
7. Just don't get burned!
8. You can repeat this process until your little grubby candle is just how you like it, more or less. In the pic above, you can see, some has alot, and one has very little and is still grubbish~.
9. I then set it over on a new piece of wax paper to dry.
10. Then tied on a piece of homespun and hot glued a cute button on it. And then they are ready to go.

The pic below is what's usually leftover after I make a batch. And be sure to keep these! You can melt them chunks down the next time you go to make some. And the cinnamon and nutmeg left, can also be used next time.

I also use the same process on the tiny tea lights that comes in bags at the Dollar Mart for $1.00.

Here they are:

Here is a few more pics of the votives:

And to finish them up, I put them in a bakery cupcake bag, tied with homespun and finished it off with a grubby hang tag.
HERE is the link to my Grubby Tag Recipe

For a little bit of detail, notice I first stapled on the tag to the bag, then I used a mini clothespin
to make it look like it was also pinned!

See ya'll next time!
~Lisa