coffee mugs as candles.

Hey! My name is Emily. My husband, Zac, and I started CoupleJones.com. We are so excited to visit A Little Artsy today! We have been married for almost 10 years and have 3 crazy little girls. We both love design and art and garage sales - he is a designer and I am a stay at home mom who loves photography, sewing, and random crafts that I get a bee in my bonnet about trying I have a little bit of a collection of vintage dishes...Or maybe I'm kind of obsessed with them. But I can really get behind a collection that is both pretty AND practical like these dishes are. My favorites are Pyrex and Fire King dishes and I LOVE going on hunts for them at garage sales. My collection is getting a little out of hand so I thought I'd share some of the Pyrex love and repurpose some of my coffee mugs as candles. I had never made candles so I was a little bit nervous - but I like a challenge! I started by heading to Hobby Lobby where I found everything I needed - candle making wax ( I chose Creme Wax so it would be a nice creamy color), premade wicks, and candle scent. I also grabbed some clothes pins that I already had with the intention of balancing them on the cups to hold the wicks in place while the wax cooled...that didn't work out like I planned...I'll show you in a bit. I melted the wax in an old pot that I had. I was a little worried about getting the wax off whatever I melted it in so I didn't use my good pots. The directions on the wax said to use a double boiler but I don't have one of those and this actually worked really well. I didn't end up having a hard time cleaning the pot but I will recommend two things. 1. Plan on using all of the wax you melt, or have a throw away container to pour any leftover melted wax into so that it doesn't sit in your pot while you are setting the candles up...don't pour leftover wax down your drain. 2. Keep your empty pot warm by leaving the burner on a VERY low setting so that the wax residue stays melted until you are ready to wash the pot. I just used warm water and dish soap and my pot was fine. (That was more than two things, I think) Your burner only needs to be on low...no need for boiling wax. Then slowly pour the wax into your cups...you will see that I am horrible at pouring without making a mess...kind of a clutz here. But the spilled wax wasn't a big deal because I put painter's paper down to protect my counter and once the candles were cooled, I just used a warm sponge to wipe of the excess wax from the outside of the cup. Once you have the wax in the cups, add your scent. The oil I got from Hobby Lobby said to add ten drops but I added more...I could tell that 10 drops was going to be too light of a scent. So just start by following the directions on the oil you buy and fudge the numbers a bit if you want a stronger smelliness...not sure that's a word. Oh well. My original plan was to use a clothes pin balanced on the edge of the cup to hold the wick up but as you can see, my pins weren't long enough to stay across the cup...lucky thing I had some leftover skewers in the drawer (from some chocolate dipped marshmallows I made a while back - yum!)...I just laid those puppies across the cups and put the clothes pins on top. Worked fabulously! Bam! Kinda feel like a 007 crafter when I work things out on the fly like that. Just call me Jones, Em Jones. So the cups sat there for a bit...probably 45-60 mins and then they were good to go! I love them. Now I'm on the hunt in my house for other cute containers that I could turn into candles. I made one for myself and two for some sweet friends...Got to get to the post office now! Thanks for reading! Hope this inspires you to try it. PS Don't leave candles unattended and be SUPER careful with the hot wax, especially if you have little ones running around...that's my disclaimer but this was really so much fun! Because I'm SUCH a big fan of the patterns on these vintage dishes, I made two 8x10 prints featuring my favorite of all of the patterns that I own. They are pretty perfect for Valentine's Day or all year round if you LOVE vintage as much as I do.