This Little Light of Mine - Home Made Soy Jar Candles

Recently I purchased a bunch of canning supplies on Craigslist. For $40 I made out like a bandit and got over 100 jars in various sizes in addition to bunches of other canning goods. Problem was, it had been in attic and basement storage, moved around and finally posted for sale years later.

When I was sorting through the lot I came across a good number of jars that had chipped rims. I had also started feeding Max some jarred baby food in addition to the food I had made. Here I am, knee deep in empty glass jars I didn't know what to do with.

I had heard a saying and I'm sure I'm mucking it up but it goes something like "Use it up, Wear it out, Make do or Do without" and I decided, for once, to live by it and make something with the jars. I lucked out that Michaels was having a 50% off one item coupon so I snagged a few microwavable soy wax boxes. Each box, normally $22 was $11 for 4lbs and I was able to get two large quart jars or three pint jars plus a smattering of baby food sized ones filled up with one box.

The soy was is ridiculously easy to use and spills clean up super quick. It can be washed off plastic and glass. Even the large quarts were firm and solid enough to store upright within a half hour. The only "difficulty" and I say that with little emphasis was figuring out how long to microwave the wax, which is probably specific to each persons 'wave.

Here's a photo of my set up. As you can see I opted to use things I had around the house for centering the wicks, which are wooden clothes pins. I used a $1.99 IKEA 4 cup microwavable measuring cup to melt the wax. This particular melting made 8 baby food jar candles, one large quart and about 1/3 filled second quart jar.

I got creative at one point and made some lavender scented ones but in my opinion the scents were too pricey and I hadn't had any oils on hand to make them that way. Again, just another expense I didn't really need to recycle the jars. I'm very pleased with the quality of the candles.

With storm power outages and hurricanes it's important to have candles on hand. Using (and possibly reusing) the containers to hold the candles is a bonus. After practicing with these emergency candles and still having a big box of jars left over, I'm contemplating making some scented/colored candles to give as gifts at the holidays.