Blessings and Beeswax
Today I am counting my blessings.
I feel blessed to live within walking distance to a natural foods market, a hardware store, two coffee shops and an ice cream parlor. I feel blessed to live on a street lined with trees. I am blessed to be married to a man who lights candles at dinner each evening, and it is an honor to be in possession of Alex’s Omi’s beautifully intricate candle douter.
It makes the simple act of snuffing a candle flame feel sophisticated and important. And I for one believe that it is important, for the simple rituals of every day life are what I live for.
The warm flickering radiance of a candle is unparalleled. Everything about the way a candle burns feels magical to me. It brings the pace of an evening down. It draws people in. It symbolizes relaxation, care, refreshment and comfort. As I learn more about keeping a home, I am realizing the importance of atmosphere. This is where we hunker down, where we create, where we feel safe, where we dream. Lighting a candle feels a bit like blessing the space. There are multitudes of candles to choose from out in the world, but my favorite has quickly become beeswax, for it burns slowly, melts romantically into yellow globs, and smells magical.
So, I set out to make my own candles, wick and all! Partly to see if it would save money, partly to avoid buying online, but mostly just to challenge myself in learning a new skill.
One day we will keep bees of my own and harvest the wax ourselves, but until then, I must find it elsewhere. Blessings abound and I found that the natural market down the street carries the most beautiful bars and molds of beeswax (harvested at a local Pittsburgh farm!). So, over the course of a few weeks, I bought about 12 ounces of beeswax.
I picked up a roll of pure cotton twine from the hardware store and a box of Borax from the grocery store and I was in business. (I know Borax isn’t the greatest product around, but it keeps the candles burning longer and brighter)
To make the wicks, I dissolved salt and Borax into warm water, then soaked a few lengths of cotton twine in the solution.
I hung the twine up to dry overnight (using the most beautiful drying rack that my mother-in-law bought me for Christmas. Thank you, Becky!)
The next day, I melted some beeswax in a rigged up tin can double boiler and dipped the twine into the beeswax. Hung those up, let them dry. And there you have it…candle wicks! I trimmed them down later to fit the jars.
For the candles themselves, I prepared a few empty glass jars by taping the wicks to the inside base of the jar. Then, I melted down about 12 ounces of beeswax in my tin can double boiler.
Added some coconut oil for two reasons. One, it is supposed to help the candles to burn slower. Two, it helps retain scent if you want to add essential oils, which I did. I added lavender essential oil. Stirred it all up and then poured into the glass jars! In true Curly fashion, I rigged up a clothespin hold to keep the wicks in place while the wax dried. There are many different ways to do this. Mine was certainly not the most effective, but it did the trick!
By the evening, the wax had set and the candles were ready to be lit. I was a bit nervous that they wouldn’t light, but they lit up perfectly and burned with a wild crackling, tall, blazing flame for the first thirty seconds, then settled down into a warm, flickering light.
Even though dinner was nothing fancy, Alex and I burned our candles. It has become a ritual, a sacred part of our day, where we sit across from each other and trade stories over the the wavering flame of a candle. It’s wonderfully reminiscent of a campfire. While soon enough camp fires will be roaring through summer nights, I am blessed in the Now with beeswax candles, chilly March evenings and Alexander by my side through it all.
And when dinner is over, we snuff the flame with Omi’s candle douter and call it a night.
Until next time,
Elle
