Gel Candle Designs: Glowing Gemstone Gel Candles with Soy Wax base.

Glowing Gemstone gel candles… made with a base of Soy Wax.

Glowing Gemstone Gel Candles with Soy Wax base

Soy wax is one of the newest crazes to hit the candle community.

Soy wax is made from soy beads and a 100% vegetable product. It is opaque and very much resembles white paraffin however comes in ‘flake’, form to easy to pour into a pot to melt.

Soy burns longer than paraffin, however not as long as gel.

Soy wax is not very ‘user-friendly’ when it comes to melding with our candle colors. Thus, you are going to have mostly pastel colors in soy candles.

The best news is that soy wax can take up to 1.5 ounces of fragrance per pound of wax. So this is your best choice for customers who want extreme scent, and are willing to pay the added cost. Soy is said to burn much cleaner and without ’soot’ so is an environment-friendly product, a plus for naturalists.

Glowing Gemstone Gel Candles with Soy Wax base - top view

For our Glowing Gemstone Candles, we selected glassware which has a wide mouth, for the presentation of our gemstone ‘topper’, which we will create and want to attractively show off, since this is the focal point of our candle.

The theme of these candles is a more ‘natural’ and elegant candle.

The base is going to be soy, and then placing gel ‘cubes’ on the top along with our Illuminary Embed ’stones’.

Place this candle in the light during the day… and at night, before lighting, the stones will reflect and give a beautiful presentation. Once again, a design that is unique and interesting.

This seems to be an age when rocks and crystals are very popular… with our added celestial glitters; we can make them simply stunning and beautiful.

First thing we need to do is melt, color and scent a small amount of gel which is going to be our gel ‘rocks’ on top of the candle. (If you choose, you can embed these throughout the candle; however, to have the clean burn from the soy wax, we have simply placed them on the top for show and theme.)

NOTE: Many grocery stores have ‘microwave pots’, usually brown, which have pouring spouts on the sides. These come in several sizes and are perfect to pour gel to color and scent.

We colored a small batch (about a pound) with pastel blue and another with green.

We are creating a blue top which we will name “Blue Lace Agate & Turquoise” scented with Blue Lagoon fragrance; and a green top which we will name “Green Quartz & Jade” scented with Juniper Breeze. (If you struggle with the names for stones, www.craftstones.com has a beautiful color catalogue naming a couple hundred stones with pictures. Of course you could even add some real stones into your ‘rock topper’ if you wish.)

Gemstone Gel Candles with Soy Wax base

Ok, back to our candle. We leave the colored and scented gel in our microwave pots to set up for later use. (This is also the way to make clear ice cubes for your drink candles…simply use scissors to easily cut the shapes you want.)

Next we melt our Soy Wax and scent it. We are leaving the soy wax white to contrast nicely with our rock top. Attach your wick to the bottom of the glassware to hold it in place. Soy does take much longer to set than gel. Pour the glass container and allow cooling. Keep checking the wick during the setting time to make sure it remains centered and straight. Since the soy is opaque, it isn’t as crucial to make sure the wick is perfectly straight; however you do want it centered and correctly positioned for a professional candle.

When the candle is completely opaque and solid, it is time to create the magic with our ’stone topper’. This is the fun part. Using scissors cut the gel you previously scented and cooled into various shapes to appear like stone/crystals, and place them random on the top of the soy. Then place your illuminary rocks around the gel cubes. Next we lightly dusted with some gold celestial glitter to give that magic, elegant sparkle.

The final step is to re-melt a small quantity of scented soy wax. Carefully pour a very thin layer on the top of the candles, making SURE you fill in the nooks and crannies to adhere your stones to the candle. NOTE: You do NOT want to pour this soy OVER your rocks because that would give them a white coating. You want the pure look of the gel, which looks like glass and uncovered illuminary stones so that they will reflect at night. This pour is simply to attach your rock topper to the candle and only needs to be about ¼” thick at the most.

Trim your wick to ¼” inch and you have a fabulous Glowing Gemstone Candle. Remember to attach tags to name the stones. You can use pink gel for Rose Quartz, clear gel for Moonstones, dark blue for Lapis, purple for Amethyst…just for some other examples.

Select stunning pieces of glassware with open, wide mouth for the display of your rock topper and don’t forget to add the shimmer of glitter, for that magic touch.

So these are fun and easy candles to present for the holidays! We’ve tried to give lots of extra ‘information’ this month, for those who have not already worked with Soy Wax yet.

So enjoy and have fun… using your creativity…. and sharing your talents!

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

Gel Candle Designs: Designing Candles with Gel Cubes

Folks don’t think about gel cubes in their gel candles. Folks don’t realize the power they hold.

Gel Cubes in Gel Candles

Gel cubes are wonderful, squishy goodies that make life easier! Gel cubes are simple to make. I always leave mine unscented (we’ll get to that in a minute).

First, pre-warm your oven on Low, then turn off. For the gel, all you need to do is ladle directly from your Presto Pot into a cookie sheet (with sides, of course!). I use MP Penreco gel in an clean, nonstick cookie sheet. Just keep adding liquid gel until the cookie sheet is full. Then carefully place in your oven for de-bubbling. Remove when gel has cooled. You can make your chunks with colored or uncolored gel.

I use a sharp knife to cut the cubes – you get a cleaner cut by not using scissors. Simply peel the sheet of gel out of the cookie sheet and cut with a knife into long strips. Then start cutting into cubes. The smaller the cubes, the easier they are to work with when creating your candle. I cut mine about 1/4″ diameter square. But be sure to cut some larger ones too. A few varying sizes will come in handy.

I spend several afternoons merely building up my cube “inventory”. You can peel out the sheets of gel and lay upon a sheet of freezer paper (yep, they stack!). While you watch TV at night, just bring out your gel sheets and start cutting cubes… you’ll be surprised at how much you can get done! Store the gel cubes in zipper seal bags. Be sure to keep all colors separate. This way, once you’re ready to start gellin’, all you have to do is pull out a bag of precut cubes. Easy, peasy!

I’ve found that when burning a gel candle using unscented cubes, the scent throw is not compromised. By having your inventory of unscented cubes, you can immediately begin crafting and not have to worry about scent. The scent is in the over-pour

What can you make with gel cubes? Just about every gel you create can be made easier by using gel cubes. There’s only one important thing to remember: when over-pouring, pour HOT.

When making a seascape, position the embeds *exactly* where you want them by keeping in place with gel cubes. Simply wick the container, add a bed of sand, and a few gel cubes. Then start placing your sea creatures. Surround all the embeds with clear gel cubes. You can continue building the seascape all the way to the top simply by “suspending” your embeds in between the gel cubes. Then, over-pour with hot, scented gel.

You can also add some larger gel cubes before pouring the sand into your container – they provide bumps in the sand to give an uneven, more realistic ocean floor. This technique can be used with any gel creation containing embeds – not just seascapes.

If the above technique doesn’t suit your fancy, there’s another way to “suspend” embeds with gel cubes. Sacrifice a Pyrex lasagna dish to your gellin’ addiction <grin>. Fill the pan halfway with clear, unscented gel and let cool for 8-11 minutes. Then take your embeds and squish into the gel about halfway. Let cool. Once cool, over-pour with hot gel to the top of the pan. Again, let cool.

Now, what do you have? If you take a knife and cut a wide area around your embed, it’s suspended inside of a gel cube! This is a very, very easy way to “suspend” an embed. If you like to use a wire to hold your embed in place but the embed doesn’t have a little hook, then just run the wire through the gel cube that holds the embed inside.

You can also make Mosaic gels, or chunk gel candles by using multiple colors. Simply put some complimentary colors together in a bowl and toss like a salad. Always be sure to use CLEAR gel cubes with the colored mixture – it helps to separate the colors once inside the candle. Pour the mixed cubes into your wicked container and overpour with hot, scented gel. Voila…a Mosaic gel! Again, easy to make.

When tossing & mixing your gel cubes, don’t forget GLITTER! Glitter is another powerful tool when working with gel. Sprinkle a few pinches into your mixture and look at the extra shimmer & twinkle your candle will have! Be sure to always have on hand the good, basic glitter colors of silver, gold, and diamond dust. These can be used with just about any color of gel.

Gel cubes can be layered for a rainbow candle. To prevent colors from bleeding onto one another during the over-pour just work with one layer at a time. Put in the gel cubes and overpour to the top, then add more cubes, then overpour. Ever wonder how to make those “Jello” creations? Gel cubes! Just toss some cubes into a wicked dish and gently over-pour.

Gel cubes work well with wax embeds. Not only will they hold your embed in place, they also help to cushion the wax against the hot gel, which prevents bleeding or melting. Use gel cubes when making fruit preserve candles. Add wax fruits around the perimeter of the container while filling the center with gel cubes. This will make your wax embed supply last longer! Use clear or colored cubes to position fruit slices in your pie candles, then over-pour with scented gel. There are many, many uses for gel cubes. I’ve only touched the surface, but I hope it sparks your imagination and creativity to come up with ideas of how to make gellin’ easier!

by Amy Pascoe of RusticEscentuals.com