Shell Candles

These shell candles are one of my Christmas crafts, I am planning on giving them away as gifts for the ladies in my family as most of them are quite girly! I already had the wax pellets left over from a previous craft where I made teacup candles. One thing I learnt from those is that the wick sustainers are really important in keeping the wick in place! I think the wax cost me around £6 and out of that I made 3 small teacups and 8 shell candles so it was good value for money. The shells are actually scallop shells that I washed and sterilised. We ate the scallops but you could ask at the supermarket if they had any shells they were throwing away, there are lots of crafts that could be done with them! To make the candles I fixed the wicks to the sustainers and put them in the right place on the shell. I then used a double boiler (one pan of boiling water with a smaller pan over the top) and added the wax pellets, stirring until they were fulling melted. After taking it off the heat I added a few drops of vanilla room fragrance and poured the wax into the shells. They set very quickly especially in a cold house but its helpful to stir them occasionally to get rid of any bubbles. This time I completely forgot but they have turned out okay, a very cheap but good looking Christmas gift!