Fluff the Nest Friday: Candle Making for the Fall Home

One thing I love to do after fluffing the nest is to light a candle! The flickering light reflects off of those freshly cleaned surfaces and the scent adds a pleasing aroma around the home. Sometimes when I need motivation to clean, I may even go ahead and light the candle before I begin my work just to get me inspired and moving.

I found this pretty acorn dish at Home Goods a couple of weeks ago. What actually caught my attention was the fact that it’s a dish for baking a wheel of brie in and I enjoy serving baked brie during the holidays. I loved that it’s an acorn with a matching lid to keep the cheese hot until time to serve and little handles on each side to carry it. It’s just so cute! However, as I was putting out fall decorations last week, I began to think of what an attraction candle dish it would make. Oh, the dilemma! So, I decided I can use it as a candle all throughout the fall and then it will be burned down by the time Thanksgiving arrives, ready to be cleaned out for baking some brie!

I first looked at Walmart and several craft stores around town for soy wax shavings to melt–nothing! I ended up ordering some soy wax shavings from Amazon and it came with the wicks as well.

I wanted to give the candle a seasonal scent and I had the most perfect essential oil for autumn! It’s called Harvest Spice from DoTerra and I’ve been using this same little bottle for the last few years and still had a lot left. It’s perfect for fall! I usually diffuse it or put it in my mop water, and I get a lot of compliments on it from guests.

I read a few websites to get an idea of how to do this without a disaster and after combining advice from the different sites, this is what I did. I poured some water in the dish until it came up to the desired level for my candle (about an inch from the top) and then measured that water in a liquid measuring cup to see how many ounces of wax I would need.

I dried out the dish and the measuring cup and stuck 3 wicks in the bottom of the acorn dish. I then poured some wax shavings into my glass measuring cup and heated the wax in the microwave in intervals of 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between, and adding more shavings until I had the desired amount. It’ll be hot so use a cloth or hot pad to take it out of the microwave! (At this point I couldn’t keep up with taking photos, so I’ll just explain it without pics.)

Once the wax got up to about 160 degrees or pretty close, I stirred in my drops of essential oil for a couple of minutes, slowly to avoid bubbles forming. There were all kinds of suggestions for how much oil to use and one site recommended 15 drops per ounce of wax which sounded good, so I did the math and added my drops. It takes a lot of drops, ha!

I propped a ruler and some wooden spoons on top to keep the wicks upright. As soon as I poured it, I had to leave the house to take my son to his guitar lesson, so I left it on the counter to dry and when I got home it was all set! I trimmed the wicks and couldn’t wait any longer to light it.

It burns pretty and evenly with the coziest harvest spice scent. It might be burned down long before Thanksgiving, judging by how much we’re already enjoying it! And now I want to fill every little dish, cup, and container with candle wax, lol. If you’re on my gift list this year, you might just be getting a hand-poured candle!

Ok, friends! Today, my little (not so little anymore) student and I will finish out our school week and then I’ll work on nest-fluffing for the rest of the day before crashing with some pizza and TV tonight. I didn’t get any yard work done last weekend as I’d planned because it rained a LOT and I wasn’t feeling good anyway, so that’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow. Have a great weekend!