Melt the wax using a simple double boiler

Since your ultimate goal here will be to have your wax cool from a liquid to a sort of cookie-dough consistency, you don’t need to heat your wax as with most other candles. Just see that it is liquid. The lower the temperature it is when your pour it into sheets, the faster it will cool for you.

Adding Dye

After the wax is entirely melted, add your candle dye. Each of our diamond shaped dye chips colors 1 lb of wax. Use more or less candle dye for lighter or darker colored candles. Drop a dye chip (or part of a dye chip) into the melted wax, and stir until the dye chip is entirely dissolved into the liquid wax.

Adding Fragrance

After you have melted your wax and added candle dye, you can add candle fragrance to your wax. The standard ratio for our candle fragrance oils is one ounce of fragrance oil per 1 lb of wax.

Creating Thin Wax Sheets

Using a large spoon or a soup ladle, pour a small quantity of liquid wax on to the wax paper in the cookie sheet or cake tin. Use the back of the spoon or ladle to smooth the wax and coax it into a rough square.

Pour the wax only about ¼” deep, or less, to create thin wax sheets.



Prepare to Cut Shapes

When your wax is nearing the phase where you will be able to work with it, remove it from the cookie sheet. To do this, grasp two corners of the wax paper lining the cookie sheet and lift it out of the pan. You can wave it in the air a little to get it to cool to a cookie-dough consistency more quickly.

Lay the wax on your cutting surface and peel the wax paper off.



Cutting Shapes

Cut out petal and leaf shapes from the wax using your craft knife.

Cut the Wick

While your wax sheet is cooling, cut a length of wick about 2 to 3” long.



Creating the Flower

Taking the wick in one hand and a wax petal in the other, wrap the wax petal around the center of the wick, pinching one end of the petal into the wick as you roll. This end will be the “stem” of the flower, the end that floats in water. Use your fingers to pinch and flare the other end outwards, as a petal would flare. This first petal creates the center of your floating rose.

Take another wax petal and, overlapping the place where the last petal ended, wrap the new petal around the center of the flower. Use your fingers to flare the top of the new petal out at the top of the flower, and pinch it into the wick at the “stem” of the flower. Smooth it into the previous petal on the underside of the flower with your fingers, to blend it into the “stem” of the flower and create a bond with the previous wax petal.

You now have two petals wrapped around your wick. Continue to add wax flower petals, each time flaring the top of the petal outward, and pressing the bottom of the petal into “stem”, smoothing it into the previous petals to create a bond that will stay when the wax has hardened.

Add petals until you are satisfied with your flower.

You can add a leaf to your flower by placing the petal shape perpendicular to the other petals of the candle, like so.

When you are satisfied with your flower, trim the wick on the bottom (stem end) of the flower flush with the base. Use a small triangle of warm wax sheet and cover the wick at the bottom of the flower, smoothing the edges into the flower to create a seal. This is to keep water from soaking your wick or seeping into the flower while it is floating in water.



More than One Color

The process for making a floating rose candle with more than one color is the same as that for making a single color floating rose candle, except that you will need to create a series of wax sheets in different colors as you build your flower.

Alternate Petal Shape

As the flower grows larger, it becomes more difficult to manipulate the standard petal shape used for the center of the flower.

If this is a problem for you, try cutting out this alternate shape for your outermost petals:

The wide end is the top of the petal. Press the narrow end into the stem of the candle and press it into the previous petals to create a bond with the “stem” of the flower.

Use your fingers to flare out the top of the petal.



Finished Floating Roses

Practice makes perfect with these hand made floating rose candles, so if your first few attempts don’t turn out, try try again! You can always melt down your mistakes and start over.