Monday Made-It: Citronella Candles

Three weeks in a row with something to share for my Monday Made-It! I'm so proud of myself! And this week, I actually have something crafty that I made. Shocker. I know.

Wednesday evening was my very first Pinterest party, and we made Citronella candles! I wanted to do something that would be useful for the summer but was still pretty and fun. I found this pin here that had SIMPLE and easy to follow instructions. Sold!

Then I gathered my supplies. A.C. Moore has great coupons every week in the Sunday paper, so I gathered them to get my wax (I bought the 4 lb brick after learning that a lot of people weren't able to come. That was enough to fill 5, maybe 6, mason jars) and candle wicks. I recommend getting the big ones! We already had mason jars and a hot glue gun. Then I cheated and bought citronella fuel instead of the oil because it's (a) cheaper and (b) easier to find. We were sweating it whether that was actually a good idea or not. So far, no explosions!

The funniest part was trying to break apart the stupid block of wax! We tried with a knife first and finally found success after pulling out Steven's tools. We ended up using a flathead screwdriver and a hammer. That worked just fine! If you don't want that extra frustration, I would recommend buying the wax flakes. They only came in 1 lb bags at the store, though. After that, you just melt the wax, take it OFF the stove before adding a very small amount of citronella, then pour it in your containers (where you've already glued the wick in place) and let it cool!

We also added little burlap koozies because I had extra burlap from a made-it I did back in May and still need to share about (maybe next week). My only negative about these candles is that they sunk in a lot in the middle. I'm not sure how to prevent that. It may be because we used fuel instead of oil, and that changed the consistency. I don't know.

And finally, proof that I have in fact tried out the candle and seen with my own eyes that it won't explode. We also didn't get eaten alive, and I felt like we didn't have as many bugs (just flies). That may be just because of the time of day (jury is still out on weather it does prevent them or not), but we at least had a pretty candle!