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  • Hi, I’m Emily

    Emily Fazio

    I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle.

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Drip-Dyed Candles

October 26, 2011

I had a fun idea for home decor. But it didn’t go so well. Want to see anyways?

Here are the facts, Jack:

I collect candles from garage sales. Even if they’ve been used once or are a little banged up, I can stomach paying $0-$2 for a big candle that will burn for weeks instead of an $12-$25 candle that I could buy retail. Many a time, they’re tossed into those free bins at yard sales, and the real treasure is when you can cram 80,000 tealights into a paper bag during those precious church “bag sales”. Can you believe it? Perfectly good candles. So, I’ve accumulated have a lot. And it’s good, because I burn candles almost daily during the fall and winter months.

I picked up these two from who-knows-where, who-know-when, and even though they looked like they were stored in the bottom of a box of holiday stuff in grandma’s attic for 20 years, they were unused, large, and unscented. Wins almost all around.

Test subjects: Denty, but unused ivory candles.

Because they were a little dinged up, appearing both dented and discolored in spots, I volunteered them for this project I had been thinking up. Drip-dyed candles. Think: A combination of Martha Stewart’s dip-dyed candles and these crayon art pieces that have been circulating Pinterest this summer (amazing DIY interpretation as shown by Erin B. Inspired):

I think Martha's great. Photo credit: marthastewart.com

Amazing art by Erin B. Inspired. Photo credit goes to Erin herself.

The concept, to make drippy lines of colorful crayon wax all down the sides of the candles, adding a little flair (picture me flipping my hair) and helping to disguise the bruises and dents on the candles. Because I only had one 24-pack of crayons to work with, I wouldn’t have had enough to melt in a crock pot a la Martha Stewart, but picking and choosing a color palette that was both very autumnal and very match-matchy to my new living room color block art seemed to be a good idea. At the time.

I taped said selection of reds, oranges, red-oranges, peaches, to the top edge of the candle with some blue painter’s tape.

Test subjects: Ready for meltage.

And then, with a simple Wagner heat gun (something that Pete has owned for helping to strip paint), I blasted the crayon tips on the lowest heat setting. The lowest setting still gets pretty wildly hot, even enough to burn the crayon paper and start a small fire (whoops), but is gentle enough to keep the wax-flying chaos under control.

Test subjects, effected by the wax.

I carefully shifted the crayons while I melted them, careful not to singe my fingies, to help the wax dribble on different areas of the candle. I should also note to be careful how long you hold that gun at the candle itself. Because the candle is made of wax, and will start to soften and morph a little under the heat generated. In my experience, it wasn’t enough to damage the candle, and I observed the crayons melting much more quickly.

Drip progress. Getting wild. Here’s the first problem: The dribbles weren’t falling straight like I hoped. Partially because of the strength of the heat gun making it splatty, partially because it was my first time playing with these substances and it was a learning experience.

Like blood.

Instead of looking like autumnal-happy-matches-my-mantlepieces, it was looking like oozing blood, which, with Halloween just a few days away, I decided was still OK. It wasn’t the intent, but I can let it fly. Also, what I’m showing you here is the best side of the candle. The other angles weren’t as perfectly drippy.

Blood candles. Bwa-ha-ha.

I forged on with candle #2 by planning a style that was more like Martha Stewart’s dip-dye model, except instead of dipped, I’d drip the wax onto the lower area to simulate it looking dipped. Ah, I thought it would be nice and clean.

Test Subject #2: wrapping the base to keep the color at the bottom half of the candle.

Clean, no. Weird, yes.

Oi vey. A messed up second test subject.

The second candle was going so poorly that I actually just let loose on the white area and let the drips do whatever they wanted. Lost hope. Looks a little like a 1st grade art project.

Not what I intended. But Halloween appropriate, so ho-hum. I think they look murder weapons. Mental note, I need to catch up on this season of Criminal Minds.

Finished products. So not what I thought I'd end up with.

At least they’re still burnable, so it’s not at all a lost cause. Very soon my evidence will be gone-zo.

Getting rid of failed DIY-project evidence.

Any decor fails recently? Wax projects gone awry? And more importantly, have you done any projects this like that have gone awesomely (like Erin B. Inspired’s rainbow wax canvas)? I’d love to see.

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Decor  / DIY

Emily
I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle. You can find me writing for HGTV and DIY Network, follow me on facebook and instagram, or drop me a note if you'd like. I love notes.

10 Comments


Shannon Summers
October 26, 2011 at 9:53 am
Reply

Emily, dang that was a valiant attempt! I remember reading that issue of Martha Stewart Living where she shows us all things dip dyed. I’ve been planning on dip dying some throw pillows myself. At least the candles work well for Halloween!



    Emily
    October 26, 2011 at 10:16 am

    Haha, thank you Shannon! I need to go research more Martha dip-dying projects pronto.

Ashley@DesignBuildLove.co
October 26, 2011 at 7:03 pm
Reply

this is hilarious! Perfect for halloween!!!!!!! (and now you’ve experimented with them so you can try again with those lessons under your belt!)



    Emily
    October 26, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    Haha, that’s right. Thanks Ashley!

Elisa @ The Self Life
October 26, 2011 at 11:13 pm
Reply

Hehe, this post made me giggle! Still a pretty clever idea though! Maybe.. buy one of those gross pans from Goodwill (who buys second-hand cooking pans?) melt a whole bunch of crayons in it and dip! Wahla! That way you can just chuck that wax-infested pan too.



    Emily
    October 27, 2011 at 10:32 am

    Thanks Elisa! I definitely need more crayons before I attempt that, but using a grungy pan is a great idea. When I was a kid, all of our broken and run down crayons ended up in a bin all by themselves; access to those old crayon pieces would be ideal for a project like this (instead of buying a ton of new crayons). People with broken crayon excess, send them my way.

John @ Our Home from Scratch
October 27, 2011 at 12:36 am
Reply

Emily, awesome site and awesome home! Looking forward to watching your progress!



    Emily
    October 27, 2011 at 9:32 am

    Thanks John! Glad you stopped by!

Tamara
November 3, 2011 at 6:13 pm
Reply

Holy Crapper! I haven’t laughed this hard in a while!
I was just over at DIY when I saw that you were the new blogger. I don’t usually look at blogs, but yours is a keeper!
I was crackin’ up over your crayon wax/ murder candle debacle. This sounds just like many of the projects I’ve attempted over the years. It’s good to know there are other people out there copying crafting goddesses like Martha and just making it up when it doesn’t work. Cheers!



    Emily
    November 3, 2011 at 7:10 pm

    Thanks for the nice comment, Tamara! I’m glad you liked that wreck of a project. Update: They’re only half gone. Probably 1 more week until the evidence is gone. Crayons are melting nicely as it burns down though ;)

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    Emily Fazio

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