Black Eyed Susan, Zinna, and Tomatoes

Cap Candles

Cap Candles are fun!

I start by collecting the caps.  I personally don't drink enough of anything that comes capped so I ask friends for their caps.  They need to be metal caps. 

I use soy wax because it is a renewable resource.

I put the roasting pan on the stove top with a large mouth jar ring in bottom and add enough water to NOT float the old coffee carafe.  It's okay if it floats a little but you don't want it to tip and spill the wax into the water.  The coffee carafe rests on the jar ring instead of the bottom of the roaster.  You can use a pan or even a double boiler.  I prefer to use the old coffee carafe because I can dedicate it to melting soy wax.  This is a very good reason to save the carafe when the coffee pot dies.  Pouring from the carafe into the caps is tricky so I pour into a smaller container and use that to pour into the caps.  You've got to experiment a bit to see what works for you.  

There are a lot of ways to obtain wick material.  I like to experiment with thickness and type and as I create my regular candles I trim the excess wick and if it is 1/2 " or longer I drop it in a drawer for use in my bottle cap candles.  Wooden wicks are over-kill in bottle caps. Don't bother unless you are are outside in a fireproof area when you light them.

Take a hot glue gun, drop a drip of glue in the center of the lid and quickly attach the wick into the center of the cap.  My favorite helper was the young daughter of a friend.  She is 11 and she was a lot of fun to work with.  I would drip glue and she'd stick the wick in.

Stir the wax with a bamboo skewer or something that won't attract too much of your wax.

Pour the melted wax into the bottle caps over paper because you are going to drip.  

 These candles are fun.  They don't last real long.  The longest I've managed was 35 minutes.  The glue melts and the wick tips and all is over.  A line of these on a side walk or inside a fire pit during a burn ban is pretty cool.

The exact recipe I used for this batch

4 oz soy wax
1 1/2 t. stearic acid
5 ml Persian Pear Fragrance Oil

This recipe made 43 bottle cap candles.  There might have been more had I not spilled so much.

The stearic acid is a vegetable base wax hardener. It is optional.  I would not use this ratio for larger candles because your wick would burn up before the wax making a very tiny flame.

I use a dropper to measure the fragrance oil.  Fragrance oil is optional.

Trim the wicks as needed.

Nephew Bryan visits from Florida

Nephew Bryan on the left.  Grandson Matt on the right.  Bryan is visiting from Florida.  He says the cool weather feels good to him. We had an afternoon of family visiting and fun.  I set up a wood pile for entertainment.  Only one maul and one small hammer were broken.  Some of the wood was split.  Two young girls decided they would move into the summer kitchen when they are 18 so they started cleaning it right away.  A lot of spiders and cobwebs disappeared.  I suggested they have a sleep over first.  They want to become emancipated teenagers when they turn 13 in a couple of years and have bake sales to support themselves.  I asked them about the plumbing and they reminded me that I have a toilet seat that fits on a bucket.  The younger boys created Halloween decorations by hanging all my tow chains from the summer kitchen balcony.  They wanted a plastic skeleton but all I had was a feed sack and a machete.  As I walked through it this morning I read the word Boo! printed in marker on the back of the torn feed sack.  It made me laugh.  I love how much fun everybody had yesterday.  The youngest boy asked where the goose was that laid the golden eggs.  I swore him to secrecy and showed him the can of gold paint that I had used on the rocks.  My brother cooked burgers and corn on the cob while my brother in law cooked gumbo with chicken, shrimp, and gator.  Where do you find "gator" in Washington?  At Farmer George's in Port Orchard.

Catnip hanging in my living room at night

I love the way the paper lantern behind the catnip looks like the moon.