Made a homemade candle

I cheated some in doing this. A friend of mine had already given me a glass candle holder containing a fresh tea light; I used the new tea light metal cuff, its wick, and some old candle wax to create a candle. I should be able to repeatedly use the metal cuff, and presumably I can create a new wick from some twine. This exercise is designed to be a fun way to use up all the wax that gets wasted when a candle runs out of wick.

However, it involves "playing with fire" in the sense of manipulating hot wax, putting a candle in a toaster oven, and so on. YOU CAN GET SERIOUSLY HURT! This can be a dangerous activity even if you are careful, so BE EXTRA CAREFUL and if you follow these instructions, take responsibility for your actions and don't blame me if something goes wrong. All I know is, this worked for me with my particular set of materials.

Steps:


1) Take an old candle, put it in the toaster oven at about 200 degrees F. You must be very careful to keep pretty constant watch over the candle. DO NOT BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN DOING THIS, IF YOU DO IT'S NOT MY FAULT! Eventually, the wax begins to melt. In this case, I had an old burned out candle in a clay base that I put in my toaster oven and watched carefully as it melted.


2) Remove the wax candle from the (new) tea light metal shell (cuff), and remove the wick from the candle. Save the wax candle for later use. Remove the old candle with the melted wax from the toaster oven - it's HOT so be careful not to pour it on yourself, be careful holding it, etc. Carefully pour the melted wax into the tea light metal shell, set the wick with its metal base down into the shell surrounded by the melted wax, and then let it all sit till the melted wax solidifies.


3) Voila, the candle is done. I was able to pull the candle out from the metal base, but this is not necessary.


4) From there I dropped the new tea light into a candle holder and lit it. Works!

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