Introduction: Make a Candle From a Glass Bottle

About: Creating DIY projects

Today let's make a candle! It's an easy project to make, and you can put your old bottles to use in another creative way. I'll be using a few skills that I have compiled in previous instructables, which go into more detail. I'll have links to each of those as they are relevant.

If you would like to see this instructable as a video, you can find it here: https://youtu.be/BGHG3aajfiM

Next is a list of what I used for this project:

Supplies

Step 1: Mark and Score Your Bottle

I'm starting with this large blue bottle. I'll be cutting off the bottom of the bottle and saving the top portion for a future project. I'm using the smaller bottle to estimate where I want to make the cut. I make my mark with this paint pen.

Now I grab my bottle scoring jig and score my bottle at the mark that I made. You can see my previous instructable to learn how I made this jig: Make a Glass Bottle Scoring Jig

Step 2: Cut Your Bottle

Once the bottle is scored, you need to cut/break it at that score line. I didn't take any pictures while I cut the bottle this time, but if you want to learn how I do this you can check out my instructable on that here: Cut Glass Bottles Using a Soldering Iron

Step 3: Polish the Edges of the Cut Bottle

Next I'll sand the edges smooth, using various grits of sandpaper, starting with 60 grit. After finishing with 2000 grit I check out the results. It looks good, so now it's ready to become my candle. For more detailed information on this step, you can see my previous instructable on that here: Polish Glass Bottle Edges After Cutting

Step 4: Prepare for the Melted Wax

Before I melt the wax, I want to get the candle wick ready. I start with this tea light candle. I don't need the candle itself, just the little pan it comes in. I cut slits around the edges of it so that I can flatten it out. The purpose of this is to hold the wick in place. The bottom of the bottle is curved so this will help me keep the wick centered. There are other ways for securing the wick too, this is just one way.

Step 5: Adding the Wick

For this size of candle, I'm going to use 3 wicks. I need to poke holes into this to pass the wick through. For 2 of the wicks I'm actually using one piece of wick, leaving some extra between the ends. The 3rd wick will also have some extra inside the candle. I'm doing this to help the candle soak up and burn more wax when it gets low. This is kind of an experiment, so I'm not really sure how well it will work.

Step 6: Securing the Wicks Before Adding the Wax

I want the wicks to be straight in the candle, so I pin them up before pouring the wax in. I used a pencil and a dowel, but kind of struggled to get the pins to stick into the pencil.

Step 7: Melting the Wax

I'll be melting the wax with a double boiler. For some color, I'll be using a crayon. I probably don't need to use the whole thing for this much wax, but I did anyway. Now I'll take this and put it over a pan of boiling water until it melts.

Step 8: Adding the Wax

Once the wax is melted I pour it in, making sure to pour some directly onto the wicks. I melted more wax than what I needed, so I just poured the extra into empty tea light candle pans. I could add a wick to those or just save them for later projects.

Step 9: And That's It!

Now that the wax has hardened, I can remove the wick supports and trim the wicks. And that's it! The candle is ready to use. There are different ways to do a lot of these steps, so feel free to leave a comment with other tips.