ROLL YOUR OWN CANDLES WITH BEESWAX SHEETS

Beeswax sheets are so easy to roll into candles. And they make pretty long lasting ones too. 

Just grab a sheet of beeswax (ours is the size of 41.5cm x 19.5cm)

It's a pretty big sheet so you can choose to half it or quarter it depending on the size of candle you want to make. 

Next, prepare your wick. Cut to the length of the candle you are making. Make sure you cut a little longer to make way for the burning tip. 

Here we use Wedo wick which works well with natural waxes.

Roll the edge of the beeswax sheet tightly around the wick. Squeeze the wax sheet tightly.

Once you get the wax sheet edges wrapped snugly around the wick, it's super easy from then on. Add pressure and just roll...

And roll...

 and roll somemore until you get the thickness that you want. 

Remember to roll according to the size that your wick can take. 

Roll too little wax sheet and the wick will burn through the wax pretty quick. 

Roll too big, and the wax may drown out the fire.

Keep pressure on while rolling to close the gaps between the sheet. 

Once you are happy with the size, cut the excess sheet away with a pair of scissors. The wax is soft and will cut easy. 

And there you have your finish handrolled beeswax candle. For half a sheet, this candle burned 4 hours long!

For further enquiries on DIY candle making or candle moulds, write to us at enquiry@craftiviti.com

Or visit our outlet to have a look or purchase online here.

HOW TO MAKE TAPER CANDLES AND EGG SHAPE CANDLES

 Why use or make beeswax candle? 

Beewax candle is the oldest kind of candle making material known to men. It has been used since ancient times and in many religious functions because it is the purest form of wax. 

Beewax is all natural wax with almost no chemicals. 

It is environmentally friendly, safe and non-toxic. When it burns, there is little smoke. It also burns very clean and is biodegradable. 

When it comes to making beeswax candles, no essential oils is necessary as the candle has a slight natural honey scent. Of course, if you'd like a different scent, you can always add in the essential oils of your choice. We find vanilla scent goes well with Beeswax. 

Beewax is a lot more expensive than paraffin wax, soy wax or palm wax. And here's why...

It takes thousands of bees to collect 3kg of honey that will produce only 500g of wax

However...beewax has high melting point (in fact it is the highest among all known waxes). This means that beeswax candles also burn 3 to 5 times longer than other waxes with very little drip. 

Making candles is super easy. Here we will show you how to make beewax candles. 

All you need are:

Beewax

Mold Release Spray

Candle wick

Candle mold 

and a little clay

Here we have two types of candle molds. Taper mold is the one that is long and thin, the kind we see at a romantic dinner table. And the other mold is a fat and short egg mold. 

First we place 250g of beeswax into a metal bowl. Next we fill a pot with water and place the  beeswax bowl into the middle of the pot with water. This is called double boiling. 

The wax will melt rather quick s double boiling prevents the wax from burning. 

Next, preparing the mold. 

Spray mold with a Mold Release Agent. This eases the demolding process and avoids the wax from sticking to the sides of the molds.

The egg mold is a 2-part mold that comes with a handy hole to string the wick through. We tied one end of the wick to a chopstick to help keep the wick straight. 

For the other end of the wick, we secured it with some industrial styling clay.

The bottom of the tapered candle mold looks like this. 

Here's what the top of the taper mold looks like. Using a prewaxed wick makes the stringing a lot easier specially for tapered candle molds. 

Once the wax has melted, just pour the wax into the prepared molds. Be careful not to spill as the wax is very hot and the cleaning up can be frustrating. 

See how the chopstick keeps the wick upright in the photo above?

Leakages may happen especially with two part molds like the egg mold here. Just wait for the wax to cool and simply peel it off the table top. Working on a silicon mat or newspaper helps. 

To avoid future leaks, just seal the joining of the mold with clay.

Here we wrapped tissue paper around the joining to stop the leakage. 

Egg mold done. Now we pour the wax into the taper mold which fills up rather quickly.

This is a photo of the top of the tapered candle mold after pouring. The wax cools almost instantly.

Allow candles to cool for 2 to 3 hours. Pop it into the fridge to quicken the process. 

Once the candle cools completely, we removed the bottom of the tapered candle mold. Because of the mold release, the removal is easy. 

By applying a slight pressure to the top of the candle, we are able to remove the entire candle from the long mold. Of course the Mold Release Spray helped a lot too. 

If removal is still difficult, pop the entire thing into the freezer for 5 minutes and the mold should come off easily.

Here we have two complete candles which can be used almost immediately!

Candle molds come in many different sizes and can be used with palm wax, paraffin wax, stearic wax and wax blends. 

Egg shaped candles are just perfect for Easter don't you agree?

For further enquiries on DIY candle making or candle moulds, write to us at enquiry@craftiviti.com

Or visit our outlet to have a look or purchase online here.

DIY JEWELRY MAKING WITH BLANK WOODEN BANGLE

Jewelry blanks are great bases for making wonderful DIY jewelry. 

We have here some wooden blank bangles. We also have blank wooden pieces for earrings and necklaces but that's for another day. 

These bangles are a fantastic starting base for your own DIY bracelet. 

First, give the bangles a good sanding to smoothen the surface. 

You can then prime the bangle with a primer or just paint directly on it. 

 Here we painted it with yellow acrylic paint. 

Then we added some gold leaf on. We do that by brushing a thin layer of Acyrlic Matte Medium or Gold Gilding Liquid onto the bangle. The god leaf is very delicate and breaks apart easily upon touching. This creates a beautiful natural cracked look. Of course we could turn the entire bangle into a gold bar but we decided to leave that to you :) 

We also added a little metallic bronze paint onto the bangle. It's totally up to your creativity!

To protect the surface of the paint and gold leaf, we layered the bangle with a thin layer of matte gloss. 

Here are some other ways you could design a blank bracelet.

For further enquiries on gilding or DIY jewelry making, write to us at enquiry@craftiviti.com
Or visit our outlet to have a look or purchase online here.

BASIL ESSENTIAL OIL BENEFITS

Basil oil (Ocimum basilicum)

Basil has a very stimulating scent. It is sweet and peppery. Use with caution as this oil has a very green herbal smell. 

Blends well with Bergamot, Chamomile, Lavender, clary sage, clove bud, geranium, lime, lemon, hyssop, juniper, eucalyptus, neroli, marjoram, rosemary, and melissa.

BENEFITS

• Tones skin
• Enhances luster on dull-looking skin and hair
• Treats acne and skin infections
• Eases coughing
• Used for respiratory problems such as asthma, bronchitis, sinus
• Oily hair or greasy hair 
• Treats itchiness especially those caused by insects
• Vomiting and nausea such as those caused by motion sickness and hangovers

HOW TO USE
For those suffering from congestion or respiratory problems, diffuse Basil oil in air or inhale from a cotton ball. 

Add 2 drops to a base/carrier oil such as Avocado oil / Jojoba oil and rub onto chest.

Add to soap making or lotions to improve skin health.

Add between 10-20 drops to every 100ml shampoo to reduce oily hair and scalp itchiness. 

Always do a skin test on a small area before using.

CAUTION: Avoid if pregnant, breastfeeding, or nursing. However, some people suggest that it increases milk flow, but more research needs to be done.

You can purchase basil oil here

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HOW TO PICK YOUR ESSENTIAL OILS

Essential Oils are natural herbal wonders for our body, mind and soul. 

These oils are derived from distilling plants and flowers and extracting the precious oils that does wonders for our mental and physical health, not to mention our spiritual health as well. 

So when it comes to picking your essential oils, here are a few things you must know:

SUPPLIER

When it comes to choosing essential oils, you will need to be very careful with where you get your oils from. Because of how precious these oils are, it is not uncommon for some suppliers to adulterate the oils with other base oils or fragrance oils to raise their profits. This is why having a reputable and trustworthy supplier is very important to ensure you get the best and purest essential oils there is. 

PRICING
In terms of pricing, every oil is priced differently. Some oils like Lavender, Rose and Sandalwood are very costly. So if you do find a very cheap bottle of oil labeled as ESSENTIAL OIL, dig a little deeper to find out more before buying. 

ORIGIN
Essential oils are derived from various different parts of the world. Grapefruit Oil can be from Africa or the US. Peppermint usually comes from China. Neem is derived mostly from India and so on. The plants are native to the land and need to be harvested there for good reason. So find out where your oils come from. At Craftiviti, all our essential oils are harvested and distilled in their homeland but certified and quality approved in the UK. 

CHECK THE LABELS
Always check the labels of your oils. Sometimes, there may be other additives to the oil such as base oils, binders or other chemicals. Find out more from your supplier on these added ingredients. The best oils to go for will state 100% pure essential oils. 

BENEFITS
One other way to picking the right essential oils for you is to know what you want the oil to do for you. If you have a skin ailment or migraine or a fungal infection, different oils are used for different ailments. Not all oils work the same, however, some oils such as Lavender cover a lot of ground and hence can be used in almost every application. 

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HOW TO MAKE A FLOATING CANDLE WITH WAX BEADS

Floating candles are gorgeous but here's a nice little twist to it. 

Just grab any sort of jar preferably clear glass to set the mood for a flame that seems to hover.

Fill the jar up with water.

Pour wax beads onto the surface of the water. Yes it floats! 

Stick a wick into the middle of the mound. 

Light it up!

To add scent, just drip a few drops of your favourite fragrance. 

The great thing about this is that the cleaning up is so easy. 

Once the flame is out, the wax cools on top of the water. Just pour the whole thing away or top up with more wax beads. No more issues with wax sticking to the sides of containers. 

You can find waxbeads here

EPOXY RESIN AND SOAP BASE CASTING

 Epoxy resin is seriously so fun to do and so very pretty too. 

We decided to make some gem stones one day with Epoxy and we had the perfect mold in our store. 

Just mix two parts of Part A to one part of Part B. It's that easy. 

We used a very sensitive digital scale to help us. 

So in a nutshell, if you are using 50g of Part A you only need 25g of Part B. 

Pour both parts into separate containers and then pour and mix together in a bigger container. Stir very carefully so as not to incorporate any bubbles into the resin. 

Our epoxy resin is crystal clear and takes overnight to cure depending on the size of the cast. 

After our little epoxy experiment, we tried the same mold with Melt&Pour soap base. We just melt a little M&P in the microwave and pour. 

In the photo above, the left pair is the epoxy resin. See how clear and shiny it is? The right pair is our SLS free soap base. We can glue this on to a larger bar of soap with isopropyl alcohol. 

Next up we are gonna try epoxy with glitters and glow in the dark powder. Fun times ahead so stay tuned. 

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www.craftiviti.com

DIY CANDLE MOLDS

When making candles, you don't need to confine yourself to making container candles. With the help of candle molds, the possibilities are endless.  

Candle molds can come in aluminium or acrylic molds. Both work equally well.

Both are also easy to demold by applying a release agent to the surface before pouring. We recommend a silicone release agent. However some people have used vegetable oil spray and says that it works too.

The great thing about making candles out of molds and not containers is that you get to play with harder wax which tends to make candles last a lot longer and retain better scent throw. Also, you get to make free standing candles of many crazy different shapes!

Molds come in large pillar shapes, slim tapers, cute votives, egg shapes and more. 

Most molds will come with a tiny hole at the bottom for the wick. 

As for the type of wax to use, palm wax is perfect as well as paraffin wax. If budget allows, beeswax candles work well too. 

SoyWax 415 is not so suitable for free standing candles as the wax can be too soft. However, you could try mixing Soywax with a little Stearic acid to harden the wax. There are also Soy Wax pillar blends that are harder. 

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