Yogurt Candles

I, like most people in this day and age, struggle mentally with the amount of waste we produce as a society... and for some reason, despite glass being one of the most reusable materials due to it's ability to be melted and reformed, I struggle with throwing glass jars and bottles into the recycling. I always think "theres got to be something I can reuse this for", like my row of milk bottles on the window sill and my collection of various left over glass bottles I use as makeshift vases. Recently our supermarket has had a sale on the new Yoplait Oui yogurt, I was excited to try it, but when it came to putting these glass jars in the recycling bin...  I, of course, couldn't do it.... The idea of candles came to me pretty quickly. Lately I've been very into burning candles in my home, but very uninto buying more so this felt like a win-win DIY project. Candle making is surprisingly easy, and my partner David was quick to surprise me with a large bag of Soy Wax and Wicks after barely suggesting the idea. (He found them affordably on Amazon!) 

David even helped me with this DIY, keeping my double boiler set up with an endless supply of melted wax and really thats all it took. I began by soaking the jars overnight in warm soapy water, the labels came off with ease after they soaked. Using wooden skewers I hung the wicks in the center of the jars. I melted the soy wax in a metal bowl ontop of a boiling pot of water. I put minimal essential oil and food coloring drops into each batch and poured them into the Oui jars. I let them cool for a day before lighting my first candle, but they were ready after about an hour! 

I made 9 Oui candles and also made a candle out of an old candle jar that I had used up. (TIP: to get the remaining wax out of the old candle jar I froze the candle. This seperates the wax from the jar, I find cracking the frozen wax allows it to come out with ease.)  I used Lemon, Sweet Orange Blossom and Clary Sage for my essential oils, I used 4 drops for 1 cup of wax, but think I may try 6-8 next time, I'd like a little more scent. As for food coloring I was very light on this. I read that it's better to use crayons for dye, but I didn't have any lying around. I did get a perfect pink for a few of my candles by using 2 drops of red and 1 drop of yellow food coloring. 

These were pretty easy to make, and this may be the first project on the What Kai Makes Etsy.... I just need to come up with an even more adorable label than the Yoplait Oui it starts as.