Gel Candle Designs: Celebrating Spring, Flowers and Mom

Springtime brings many new opportunities for exciting, creative gel candles ideas. Just as we watch the new re-birthing of the Earth, we also watch our children (not limited to biological) bounce through their different ‘ages and stages’, as they become the next generation of fresh ideas and new enthusiasm.

Gel Candle Floral Designs

The Earth gives us colorful flowers to brighten our spirits, and something much bigger, gives us a new vision– through gentle eyes– as we watch our children blossom…. yes, these are true gifts of life.

Please Don’t Pick the Daisies…

We started our Daisy candle using a fresh green sand base…

…Remembering first to thread our glass bead onto the wick to snuff the candle flame within the last inch, for safety.

We poured a thin coating of melted gel on top of the sand to lock it into place… use multi-colors and shades of sands and glitters for added interest for your candle base. Customers love those unique looks.

Our next step is to drop those chunks of unmelted gel AROUND the wick.. remember we want our wick to remain super straight and professional-looking.

Using the ‘chunk pouring method’ gives several benefits… you can sprinkle nonflammable glitters and foil shapes to add depth and character, creating the look of suspension to your candle. The chunks also give you substance to hold wax and glass pieces in place . A third benefit is to save time; no need to melt ALL the gel. The gel chunks also give you a quicker cooling time so that you don’t melt wax embeds.

We sprinkled our celestial gold glitter on the chunks and over-poured the liquid gel (scented with our Top-Rated floral scent: Flowering Laurel). This makes just a fabulous, yet a very simple and elegant look.

We wanted our candle to have a ‘2-looks-in-1′… so we selected a yellow daisy for one side and a pink daisy for the other, and chose some loose green wax leaves to position two leaves on one side of the flower for a realistic look.

After our gel begins to thicken, we can slide our wax flower down into the gel, pushing close to the glass surface.

Next we use our BET (embedding tool) to position the leaves where they are most attractive to the eye. We do a final ‘tug’ on our wick and we are finished with another masterpiece that will be a favorite for customers.

Gel Candle Floral Designs

Article & Design by Patti Smith, Design Artist
BioMax Candle Supply ~ www.biomax1.com

Gel Candle Designs: Celebrating Graduations

Graduation!! …Life is just beginning…… We have a very special family member graduating High School . She has been accepted to her First-Choice college so we have incorporated her college colors into her graduation candle.

Graduation Gel Candle - vop view of candle

You can also use the high school colors for the base of the candle and then use the college colors for the top half of the candle… perfect to show the transition.

We used purple stones, glitters and foils in the base of our candle, again installing our snuffing bead to insure the flame will self-extinguish at least 1″ above the bottom. We poured a thin layer of gel to seat the color base.

Our next step was again to drop our chunks of unmelted gel around the wick.

Graduation Gel Candle - frontview of candle

We sprinkled celestial purple and gold onto the chunk and poured liquid gel scented with our newest Tranquil Nights FO, which is a special Wonderful new blend of lavender and vanillas plus more.

We then added more chunks and more glitters and fuchsia diamond shapes, and did the remaining pour of liquid gel. We allowed the candle to cool slightly because we have a glass Graduate and Diploma to add and they are somewhat heavy glass embeds.

Again, having our chunks in the body of the candle will give the necessary strength to help hold our embeds in position, but we still want to wait for the gel to thicken.

Then we install our graduate and diploma, using the embed tool to position where we want. Add the top ‘Congratulation Grad’ garland on the outside of the glassware, and you have a finished candle with a great theme, while also customizing for school colors.

Article & Design by Patti Smith, Design Artist
BioMax Candle Supply ~ www.biomax1.com

Gel Candle Designs: St. Patrick’s Day

Let’s all celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day and the Luck of the Irish with these delightful gel candles!

• The base for this candle actually starts with our paraffin wax ‘deep dish cobbler’. It is always lots of fun to be able to use our candle stash in different ways.
• The cobbler piece comes predrilled with a hole in the center for the wick. We placed the ‘cobbler’ on a small dessert plate, with the 60s series wick installed.
• Next we added a piece of our white color pallet to melted gel to make the white ‘icing’ for our cake. We used our new HerbEssence FO which has a very clean and fresh scent perfect for so many springtime candles.
• Allow the gel to start to cool and thicken to resemble icing.
• We poured the gel over the top of the cobbler piece, allowing it to drape over the sides of the paraffin base.
• Next we added our green wax shamrocks around the base of the candle. Since our gel was still ‘wet’ the shamrocks adhere right to the sides of our cake.
• Then we sprinkled some gold glitter and bright green foil shamrocks randomly onto the cake and the plate.. added our glass rainbow to the top, and finally our St. Paddy glass embed himself to the front.

What a cute decoration for the March holiday!

St Patrick's Day Gel Candle "Cake"

UPDATE

Question From Reader:

From the photo you have on the Shamrock Candle (above) You have put foil shamrocks on the candle itself. I was wondering… Is this safe to put anything that will burn ON a candle???? I could make gorgeous Valentine candles with baking candy and other foil hearts…etc…but is this safe????? I didn’t think it would be safe to do the above….Especially IN or ON candles I would want to sell. Anyone? Rosie

Patti ’s reply:
Dear Rosie, “Glitter and foil shapes” can be made of all kinds of poly products. Some poly products burn badly and even can produce very toxic fumes. Others have flame retardants added, and even others, such as poly products which are microwave and dishwasher safe, are nonflammable. So it is always important to hold that flame to any piece you are going to use in or on a candle and insure that it will not torch and become its own wick. The Shamrocks you see on the candle do not flame. The problem with sugar ingredients is that the sugar can caramelize and burn. That’s why we change over to wax ‘candy pieces’. Good Questions!!! Best, Patti at BioMax

Editor’s Note: we do not recommend putting any flammable items inside your gel candle… if you choose to do so… we recommend using double-nested glassware (items and gel outer glass / gel and wick inner glass) to keep the inflammable items away from the wick.

Article & Design by Patti Smith, Design Artist
BioMax Candle Supply ~ www.biomax1.com

Halloween Pumpkin and Candy Corn Gel Candles

It is said that Halloween is one of the most decorated holidays besides Christmas, so in preparation, this month we feature a Pumpkin Patch gel candles, with glass embeds, and a Candy Corn Candle, with wax embeds. Let’s get started..

PUMPKIN PATCH CANDLE

Halloween Pumpkin Gel Candles

The highlight of this candle is a glass, orange Jack-O’-Lantern and two black bats. We poured a mix of black sand and celestial gold glitter in the base of the glassware and sealed it off with thin layer of gel, making sure our glass wick bead was above the sand level so that the flame will self-extinguish before reaching the sand. The gold glitter adds a lot of depth and makes the sand appear three-dimensional.

Next we added some clear chunks of gel to help hold our glass embeds in place, speed-up our candle cooling time and also give more interest. We then sprinkled the chunks with more celestial gold glitter. Now it is time to pour the rest of the candle, and we chose Pumpkin Pie fragrance. We allowed the gel to semi cool before lowering our pumpkin and bat embeds. Give that final tug on the wick to make sure it is super straight and trim to ¼” for the initial burn. Our finishing touch was a few little white ghosts and BOO! foil shapes sprinkled on the top of the candle. Simple, easy, fast and fun!

CANDY CORN CANDLE

Halloween - Fall - Candy Corn Gel Candles

Our second feature candle this month is a candy jar candle decorated with wax candy corn in the yellow, white and orange Halloween colors. Candy candles are fun to make and always a hit with young and old. (Keep in mind that if you are using real ‘candy’, you must use a two-piece glass arrangement because, for safety, real candy should never be housed in the same container as the wick.)

Hinged jars are easy to find at local dimes stores and are perfect for candy candles. In order to keep your raw costs down, we recommend that you merely line the walls of the glassware with the wax embeds and thus keeping the center cylinder pure gel for that long burn time that customers love from gel candles. This will save you money yet still give a very good visual of the candy theme.

We like to color the gel a pale shade, coordinating with the embeds we are using. Then if we get some color bleed, it will not be near as apparent. Colors tend to bleed most with reds and deep blues and purples. The fragrances you choose can also have an affect on the coloring, so keep all this in mind as you test your designs.

We colored our gel a light orange using just a few of our peach color crystals (no mess or spills). We scented the gel with our Candy Corn fragrance. We poured the candle about ¾ full and tossed in a few gel chunks to help cool the gel faster and start our ’set’. We know that if we insert wax embeds into hot gel, they WILL melt so we need to be patient and wait for the gel to get really thick. We test this by circular ’stirring’ with the wick and also feeling the heat of the gel using our finger. This takes some experience so you must be careful when you are starting out! Place your hands around the outside of the glassware to get an idea of how warm the gel is. to guard against burns. Unlike the nasty, skin-removing burns from hot glue guns, the gel will slide right off the skin, however, you still need to be careful and children should always be supervised.

The height of the gel should still allow for displacement of the wax embeds you are going to add. We place the wax candies in a jigsaw puzzle pattern filling in the sidewalls to look full and attractive. Use your own creativity as you embed your pieces, and use your embedding tool (B.E.T.) to turn the pieces the direction you want. Snip the wick at ¼” and admire your work!!

There are many really cute pieces of glassware decorated for Halloween. so keep an eye out. Have a fun and safe Halloween!!!

Article & Design by Patti Smith, Design Artist
BioMax Candle Supply ~ www.biomax1.com

Gel Candle Designs: Celebrating the USA – Dessert Gel Candles

CELEBRATING THE USA with Red, White and Blue USA Dessert gel candles

Red, White & Blue Celebrate USA Gel Candles Cake

Starts with our snack cake white paraffin cake (poured from a rectangular tin), with center hole for wick.

We used our gel whitener to create our opaque ‘white icing’. allowing the gel to cool and resemble *icing ready to pour*.

The entire candle is scented with Birthday Cake FO.

We poured the gel icing over the cake, allowing it to nicely drip over the sides.

Then we set a row of strawberries or raspberries on the outside top edge.

Inside the berries, we filled-in with blueberries and centered a gold star by the Wick.

We finished off the candle with a flag embed at each corner and blue glass Unity Ribbon in the center.

The final touch was a pouring of cooled clear gel scented with Berries and Cream FO to add shine and seal the candle. Such fun and so easy!

Article & Design by Patti Smith, Design Artist
BioMax Candle Supply ~ www.biomax1.com

Gel Candle Designs:  Lily of the Valley Wedding Gel Candle

Love is in the Air – Lily of the Vally gel candles for Bridal Showers and Weddings.

Wedding - Lily of the Valley Gel Candles

We chose glassware with legs to add to the elegance and a great way to wrap florals around the base.

We filled the glass with chunks of clear gel sprinkled with our metallic gold microdots for glitz and shimmer.

We then poured the candle with clear gel scented the with Angel Touch FO for light, soft fragrance.

After allowing the gel to semi-cool, we embedded our large double wedding bells and also some individual smaller wedding bells randomly around the candle.

In our wedding collection, we have a metallic bride and groom which fits perfect in front of the large focal-point bell. We finished the centerpiece with floral lilies of the valley at the outside base. Perfection and elegance!

Article & Design by Patti Smith, Design Artist
BioMax Candle Supply ~ www.biomax1.com

Gel Candles Designs: Gel Candles in Fluted Glassware

Rainbow Gel Candles in Fluted Glassware

Ask some men, and they’ll tell you they don’t understand what a woman means when she says the word “romance” … hence, the reason why so many grooms seem to “leave the wedding” up to the bride!

To try to explain it doesn’t seem to work if you should ever attempt to try … I guess it’s just one of those things that is sometimes best communicated with non-verbal entities … and that’s how my wedding gel candles I’m about to share with you about came to be, as I think the “hidden message” in these candles has to do with romance.

Two champagne flutes with a rainbow between them … one of the candles with red, orange, yellow; the other with green, blue/indigo, and violet.

The full spectrum when stood together … separate in their own right, yet complete with the company of the other.

Maybe some guys could even get this message!

These candles are created at a diagonal to sort of fit into the theme of a curved rainbow and were created by pouring each layer and allowing it to set firmly before the next layer was poured.

The instruction for these candles is a bit self-evident, especially for experienced candlemakers; so, I’d like to take this opportunity to simply touch on a minor design technique that makes a big difference in a subtle, but elegant way when working with stemware. This may be nothing new to many of you, but for crafters just getting into stemware gel candles, this may serve as a useful lesson.

Have you ever noticed that when most people hold stemware, that they will often times gaze UP into the candle? It must have something to do with the stem, such as when toasting and raising a glass. With this vantage point in mind, if your wick tab was placed directly in the bottom of the glass, without any concealment, the admirer of this candle will first see a metal wick tab. This is why I strongly suggest to do something to conceal it.

I like to use craft glitter, or, glass beads can also work for this. Some finer grade glitters may work, but sometimes they are too light and the glitter doesn’t seem to sink to the bottom properly the
way heavier craft glitter does, which is what we want in this particular application. This is one of the reasons why I select a medium grade or craft glitter for this concealing method, as it really does
conceal the wick tab very well.

Since the glitter lies at the very bottom of the glass with this method, under and away from the wick, you don’t have to worry about any “wick-clogging” effects from the glitter usage. In other words, you can use as much as you feel is necessary to adequately “hide” your wick tab.

Here’s how to do it … pour a bit of glitter into the bottom of the glass. Then, pour a bit of gel (either clear, or the color of the gel you are going to be pouring for the bottom layer) … this should be a very small amount of hot gel. Then, place your wick tab (already wicked) into the bottom of the glass and press on all sides of it with a metal pick to press it in and secure it. The glitter should remain trapped between the bottom of the bottom of the wick tab and the glass. (See close-up photo of bottom
of the glass.)

Gel Candles in Fluted Glassware

This little “finishing” touch that is performed at the beginning of creating the candle, gets your elegant stemware candle off to a grand start, with attention to detail at the top of your list and fine details at the bottom of the glass. If it’s true that elegance should be kept simple, then this simple technique should do the trick!

May you raise your stemware gel candles with pride!

By Kathy Heindel, Design Artist of Hotscents

http://www.hotscentsusa.com