My Motivation Began Here…

So, I made candles one Christmas with my girlfriend but after buying all the stuff I realized it was not worth the effort and money put into it. We went to Michaels Craft store and spent roughly $40 each and I believe we only had two candles come out of this project. This project required so much wax for one candle and the price simply wasn’t worth it. The best part was spending time with my girlfriend who I love dearly.

The glass bowl we used to melt the wax was literally impossible to clean. It dries on and leaves a terrible film. Every time I tried to wash the bowl the water would separate from the wax similar to oil and water but almost worse. Halfway through the process of making our own scented candles that were supposed to be AMAZING, I wanted to quit and actually did. The frustration set in and it became more frustrating to me than enjoyable that I gave up quite quickly and we proceeded to watch our Christmas movie and started in on our second craft for the evening. This one was way more enjoyable.

This experience itself should have been a fun joyful holiday moment but turned out to be the biggest pain in the neck. I just wanted my glass bowl clean darn-it-all. :)

I absolutely love Yankee Candles I am a huge fan of them and have them scattered throughout my house. They smell amazing and actually stay true to the smell while burning; they are the one candle that I’ve found that will actually smell the entire room of the sweet aroma.

I buy Yankee Candles for $10 for a large candle and $6 for a small one. I will not pay full price for them as $24.99-29.99 is outrageous in my eyes. Honestly $10 for a large is quite the steal in my book.

I’ve been on a hunt to find a comparable but for a Warmer…

The hunt…

This past summer, my sister had a Scentsy warmer in her bathroom that smelled so fresh, it was amazing. I had heard of Scentsy before but wasn’t sure they would compare to Yankee. With that said, they did measure up and I was utterly surprised. While I had tried other warmers and Bed Bath & Beyond’s scents they truly did not work. They made no effort to smell a room let alone my house. So at that point I was convinced to try Scentsy. I figured something out there had to compete with Yankee candles.

While in Seattle with my Aunt and Uncle two summers ago, they had a cute little fair going on with a lot of booths set up. Our little man was only a matter of weeks old. We took him in the stroller and walked around aimlessly enjoying the summers heat. While exploring we found a vendor selling Scentsy and decided I would take the plunge. Now, my warmer is from Bed Bath & Beyond, but it was more the scents I was worried about. So I bought several different scents and off we went. Here we are just over a year later and I still have one box left. I actually love them so much I haven’t bought a Yankee candle since.

Months Later…

A few months before our move I ran into quite the problem. Now I didn’t realize this at the time, but as of today I finally realized something was wrong. I have been using this warmer from Bed Bath & Beyond and the last two months every time I shut it off my light burnt out. I have gone to Home Depot three times and had a run for my money; they are not cheap ($6.49 for 1 bulb). I was really frustrated when I got the correct light but the watts were definitely way to strong (50Watts). We had a showing and came home and my husband mentioned it smelt of wax. I walked into the house and immediately smelt the wax and walked to the warmer and it reeked. (The goal was to smell the house of beauty not wax) My frustration with this warmer at that point began to grow immensely. I went back and returned the bulbs and bought the correct one, while I had bought this probably a week ago, I went to change the scent today and here we are again, the light doesn’t work. I am finally convinced that something is wrong with my warmer. Three lights in a row should not burn out within a couple weeks. I make a point to turn the light off so I don’t waste the scent at night, but having doing that, my light burns out.

Okay so the saga continues… I purchased a warmer from the store soon after (6 months ago to be exact) and it was Better Homes and Garden. It works, light has never been changed and we are 6 months with this warmer. I decided I would save the wax as I was previously dumping it in the garbage can. Having doing this there still is some scent left but I also realized what an easy way to reuse wax and for super cheap make my own candles.

The Simple Way…

I simply save the containers of the square wax and pour the wax back in. When I am ready to make my candles, I place the wax in the burner and let it melt (saving the mess of using a glass bowl in the microwave) and dump the melted wax into the mason jar after placing the wick in the bottom of the jar first. NOTE: if you want to keep the wick centered in the jar, tape it to an old pencil and lay the pencil over the jar till it hardens again and leaves you with a nice centered wick.

By doing this, you are only paying for a wick if you have the mason jars already. If you don’t have any mason jars you can always make a trip to the dollar store and many times they have cute little jars with or without lids that would work perfect for candle making.

Turning the Negative into Positives…

In the midst of my frustration with my warmer, it was nice to actually be able to make something positive out of this disastrous wax warmer.

Thanks to quitthewick for the pic