After piercing the foil last week to make our birds I started thinking about the lanterns I made when I was young (I went to Waldorf school and we did things like that). We'd freeze water in a can and use a nail and a hammer to punch a design in the side of the can- it's pretty common now. But there's really nothing like trying to hammer into an ice cold slippery can. So I'm working on some foil flame guards that are punched out while flat- easier for kids. In the meantime, I have all these little itty-bitty bits of tea candles in a box in the cupboard and this week I finally got around to doing something with them. My boy helped a bit- it's low temperature so I wasn't too worried about his participation (it' still hot wax so – caution!) 
Materials:
Old bits of wax candles
Clean tuna fish (or chicken) can
Tweezers
1 new tea candle
Flat baking pan
A strip of decorating material: scrap booking paper, ribbon, washi tape, wrapping paper
Glue stick
Remove the wax bits and discard the outer metal cups of the tea candles.
Pile all the wax into a clean tuna fish can and put the can in a low pan.
Set the oven at 200 degrees and put the pan in the oven for about 30 minutes (check it half way through).Take the pan out- leave the can in the pan!
Remove any wicks or nasty bits with tweezers (not your good ones).
You
may need to add more wax or you can just stop there- I added a
bit of old wax under my "new" tea candle as I wanted it to be flush with the
wax surface when it cooled. After I'd made these my husband suggested threading a second wick up through the bottom wax blob to make the candle last longer...next time.
When the wax has completely cooled, add a trimmed length of decoration material to the outside of the can and secure it in place with glue stick.
Hey- the wax popped out of the mold- shaaa-zam!
Recycle a can and candle wax and make something pretty.
Recycle a can and candle wax and make something pretty.
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