Candle Dipping Afternoon

This year, for her senior year of high school, I designed a Homesteading Skills course for Colette.  She'll be studying about and learning skills in the following areas: candle making, soap making, first aid, candy making (her idea), bread baking, seed starting, canning, and more.  But the year began with candle making, and today we spent the afternoon dipping beeswax candles.

Candle wicking was cut into 28" lengths

A nut was attached to the end of each cut piece, to act as a weight  to keep the candle nice and straight.



The air was cool, damp, and cloudy today.  While we waited for the beeswax to melt in our improvised double boiler, we enjoyed hot cider and chocolate-dipped leaf shaped cookies, because that makes everything more fun.



In and out and the first dip was complete.



When they were pencil-thick, the nuts were snipped off the ends and the warm bases pinched into proper shape.



The sun had set by the time we had finished dipping.  Beautiful, honey-scented tapers.



Beautiful memories.