Tea Cup Candles

All those $0.59 tea cups I picked up at the thrift stores are finally boxed up with their matching saucers, fully re-purposed as candles for part of the reception decor. Sweet relief as another project is crossed off of the to-do list!


Here is how we did it - Scotty used his hatchet (a special Christmas gift from his sister that he insists on using whenever possible, which of course has a back story for another day) to cut up large soy candles that we picked up at a markdown sale. The pieces had to be small enough to fit inside a tea kettle that I found at Goodwill for melting. Some craft stores have metal pitcher-looking melting pots for candle making, but I liked my tea kettle better because of how easy it was to pour from.

I picked up a thermometer to keep track of the heating process for this project. When the temperature is between 160 and 175 degrees F, I get ready to pour. I did all the initial pours and found that about 20% of the candles poured needed to be topped off because of the minor cosmetic cracks that happened during cooling. For re-pours I heated the wax up the same way, being even and slow in my heating as well as moving the kettle around to stir the wax up inside.

Before I even begin heating up or pouring the wax into the tea cups I had to cut wicks (be sure to add an inch and a half more than you need-this will be for wrapping around something that holds the wick upright and in place while pouring).

I had never made candles before, so I wasn't very prepared - I ended up using wooden spoons to wrap the top of the wick around.

After the candles are poured, allow them to cool as they are. Once they are cooled completely you can do any re-pours that might be necessary.  
Ta-da! Easy as that, now you have really cute candles that are not only beautiful to look at but add a classy and vintage feel to any room you put them in :)