#52Things I’ve never Done Before…

I am well aware that this whole thing is getting a bit craft heavy. I promise this isn’t going to turn into ‘Katie’s Homemade Bloomin Christmas – it’s just that when your daughter has a craft box to use and it’s a cold February afternoon this was a no brainer.

My Mum and Dad work in a charity shop which often means we receive totally intact sets of things for the kids. There is sometimes a downside in that they can be a bit outdated and this one (from 2003) couldn’t entirely be described as straightforward or easy to use. Firstly it told me I needed things I didn’t have including a thermometer (which I bought), a double boiler (which I didn’t buy and instead sacrificed a perfectly good aluminium pan), a dipping can (nope)  and something called Stearin (who knows). We ploughed ahead anyway of course hoping that wax doesn’t ever go off.

We sat the (now sadly demised) pan in another pan of boiling water and tried to get the wax to the right temperature (200 degrees). Paul pointed out that this is impossible in a pan of boiling water so we gave up.

We added what was essentially wax crayons (which due to their age made the colour a little less vibrant than on the box) but it did turn an interesting shade of pink and purple. We filled the little glass moulds it came with and used a glass dish I had in the cupboard. Most of the wax ended up in the moulds and some went everywhere else – including all over a perfectly good chopping board.

The whole thing was easy just a bit messy. P loved it.

Then we turned to a different page and used a Harry Potter party napkin to decorate a candle (more charity shop spoils). We cut around the shapes with difficulty then followed the instructional advice to heat a spoon over a tea light. The spoon turned black which we had to wipe off for fear of damaging our carefully cut out creatures. It then said we needed to melt more wax and dip the candle in it to coat the decorations (clearly the dipping can referred to above) We had no means to do this so enlisted Paul to dip each side into a bowl of wax by hand.

By the end we had one pretty cool Harry Potter candle, two mini and one large purple container candles. In achieving this we had sacrificed a saucepan, a Tupperware box, a chopping board, a jug (now only to be used for future candle making) and my best tablespoon.

I expect we will never make it past the first few pages of the book onto the heady heights of beeswax candles or garden flares, but I’m happy with that.