of candles, more candles, and bling!

so over two years ago I blogged about recycling a candle [see reduce, reuse, recycle! ... and other stories for background]. As pictured here, we salvaged about 1/3 of the original wax for reusage.

Surprisingly, we've re-recycled the wax twice more since then, using the same method & container.

The first (or second?) time, I tried putting in two wicks in an attempt to get *all* the wax to get used - unfortunately there wasn't enough oxygen for both, so that was a lesson learned.

Heh.

Maybe not. Read on.

The second (third?) time around, the wax showed signs of fatigue or something - only the wax an inch around the wick got used (the jar is like 3 inches across).

So *this* time around, I figured we'd just use a smaller, narrower jar. "This bottle that used to contain sun-dried tomatoes will do the trick!" I said to myself. And it seemed perfect! The wax filled it up nicely, the wick just the right length, everything was a go. It took its new place in the bathroom, and was put to use right away for, ummm, aromatherapy!! :D

Then the problems surfaced. As the wax level fell, the wick's position was of course deeper and deeper in the jar. The narrow jar with the even narrower mouth. Can you guess the problems?

One: it got difficult to reach in and light the friggin wick! fixed the problem by lighting a reed from the reed diffuser air freshener thingy and using that to light the wick. Yay, problem solved! Never mind that the inside of the jar was then coated with soot from the flame :p

... but what about Problem Two? Once lit, the flame struggled to burn, what with the poor air circulation and therefore low oxygen air. It got to the point where we'd just light the reed and wave it around: the smoke "aromatherapied" the bathroom odors much better than the struggling flame :p

Conceding defeat re narrow jar, I went ahead and re-re-re-recycled the wax yet again, this time distributing the remaining wax into two smaller votive candle
containers.

Ta daaaaaah!

If you look closely at the two you'll see one has a new long wick while the other is short and already used.

That's right, not only did we squeeze yet another round of life from this years-old wax, we also managed to recycle the wick from the narrow jar mistake!

I think we really outdid ourselves this time :)


...


and on another note: remember I'd "caught" Kosh ordering stuff for me? They arrived! So today I was all decked out in *gasp!* DOUBLE my usual bling count (haha!).



The new stuff? Cat Yin Yang pendant and Möbius strip bracelet.

Quality isn't that great, the bracelet's a little big, the chain for the pendant bites my hair, but don't let all that fool ya - I like :)

Thanks Kosh!!