Thursday, December 16, 2010

Handmade Holiday, A glowing wax lantern

Today I finally got around to making this glowing lantern for my Mom for Christmas.
I followed this wonderful tutorial from Rae @ Morningsunrae. I have been wanting  to do this for some time now, I got myself a brand new crock pot from a fellow Freecycler, (love love that that group, 
all giving and receiving) and I received the beeswax that a bunch of us mamas ordered from a local farm at a good price. I was a bit concerned about dipping the ballon, but followed Rae's direction and dipped a leaf first to check the temperature, and after the first couple of dips, Kaleena took over. The children were fascinated with the warm softness of the hardened wax, 
and the smell in the whole kitchen was just delicious.
Kaleena also wanted to prick the hole in the balloon which sent a fountain of water over the sink.
I used the technic mentioned at the bottom of the tutorial, standing the lantern on a hot pan for a second to shape the bottom, and later to smooth the top edges. I dipped the pressed flowers into the wax and then added them to the side of the lantern before dipping the whole thing again. I think I dipped too many times as the flowers almost disappeared, yet once a candle is lit inside they show up nicely.
For the first try I think it came out very nice, 
and it will look pretty on my Moms breakfast table back home.
Besides a few little remaining projects that pretty much wraps up my 
Christmas gifts for this year, pretty much....
~with love and gratitude~

21 comments:

  1. I have seen this beeswax bowl done before but have yet to do it- can't wait! I can just imagine how beautiful your kitchen smelled. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. We keep planning on making these and have not yet, maybe this weekend after seeing yours! I like the photo of the water squirting : ) Does the wax harden on the bottom while you hold the balloon or do you set it down to have it sort of 'squared off' to harden? Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Gardenmama,
    After the quick second on the warm pan, I held it by the top of the ballon for a few seconds and then set down on a flat surface, the wax dries quite quickly!!
    Warmly,
    Christina

    ReplyDelete
  4. Beautiful! i need to get me some more wax!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Those are so nice. I want to try one.

    ReplyDelete
  6. That is so beautiful! It never occurred to me that I could make one of these, I love it!

    ReplyDelete
  7. oh ... how beautiful it turned out!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Peaceful warmth. Mmm...

    ReplyDelete
  9. These are awesome looking. I never thought of making something like this; but now I'm excited to give it a try.

    ReplyDelete
  10. it turned out lovely. i had not seen this as my computer was fried by a power outage during the storm on monday. matt fixed it with some surgery and new parts, but i am still catching up in cyberspace.

    so lovely to have you visit!! xoxoxo

    ReplyDelete
  11. How beautiful! Such a warm light, and a gorgeous winter craft.

    ReplyDelete
  12. brilliant and divinely beautiful. I am ordering more beeswax so I can do this. Congrats on a homemade holiday! we did this too. Just got the hair on a waldorf doll to finish! yipeeee! enjoy x

    ReplyDelete
  13. Warm, warm, warm. Rich light. Like glowing honey. Have you ever dipped your hands in warm-almost-hot wax? Amazing.

    ReplyDelete
  14. What a lovely gift.

    ReplyDelete
  15. how beautiful!

    how much beeswax did you use for this? and did you use a mix of paraffin wax or pure beeswax?

    thanks!!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I used pure beeswax, I added 2 pounds to my small crock pot, I used less than half of that, you do however want a certain depth to the wax so that you can dip the balloon deep into it.
    Warmly,
    Christina

    ReplyDelete
  17. Wow Super cool! thanks for the tutorial. I would have never imagined that a balloon was behind it all!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for stopping by, I love to know you were here and enjoy comments so much.
Blessings.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.