January's Candles

In an effort to get myself caught up on the posting of what I've been burning, I've decided to group the candles I've burned into months they were burned in.  Some may travel over into the adjoining month, depending on when I started burning them.

Without, further ado, here are (the rest of) the candles that met their demise in January of 2013!

First up was a pretty candle that was reminiscent (to me) of the seaside.  It had little shells embedded around the bottom of the candle.  Notice that there were rings of various colors throughout the candle, as pictured in the shot from above.

Up next was a pretty, metallic present candle.  Initially, I thought the entire candle was made of wax...

That is until I started seeing a nail, like the kind you hammer into a wall, emerge from beneath the golden wax bow...  Look closely, you'll see it emerging...

There were four, yes FOUR, of those nails in the candle.  Why?  Because they were holding down the golden ribbon that made up the bow.  That, and the nails, weren't made of wax.  Strange...

Up next was a golden angel candle.  It was so pretty before I set it on fire.  :)

The problem with this candle, which I was about to find out, was that whatever the gold that covered the candle was made of was also HIGHLY flammable.  Once the flame on the wick met up with the golden overlay it all went downhill, literally.  The gold started making crackling sounds and kinda sparking.  When it really got going, the underlying wax was no match.  It started melting and exposing more of the overlay which could catch fire and spread even quicker.  It was a hot mess, literally.  In the end, the angel became a smoldering, liquid-y mass.  It all went down pretty quickly.

After the angel came a cute, sparkly snowman.

Mr. Snowman was covered from top to bottom in something akin to sparkly plastic beads, you can see them better here:

He wasn't very heavy or big so he melted down rather quickly.

I guess after the snowman and the present candles and the angel candle that reminded me of Christmas just past, I was ready for a reminder of the season to come - spring.  I'm not really a fan of wintertime.  

I decided on a cute bunch of Calla Lillies banded together with some raffeta.

 Along with the seaside candle (mentioned above), the pretty lillies didn't fare well under the brutal heat of the lit wick...

So I tried some Tulips instead...

Then a nice bottle of wine, or rum, or who knows what...

And finally, a pretty white pillar candle embedded with white jewels.

As the final January candle melted down I collected those jewels for future use - I'm a recycler, what can I say...

New Year Candles

I rang in the New Year with the following two candles:

A Peppermint Swirl Candle

A sparkly Santa-head Candle

Both burned fairly quickly, and the Santa candle got sparkles all over my hands, and the plate it's sitting on.  Two days later I decided to burn seven, yes you read that right, seven candles all at once - mostly because they all fit on the plate together.  Here they are:

A side view

A view from above

Starting at the 6 o'clock position and moving clockwise, the candles are as follows: A purple flower candle in a tin cup, a white flower candle in a tin cup, a white ball candle with snowflakes set in blue design, a red ball candle with poinsettias set in white design, and in the center and at 3 o'clock - identical sparkly snowball shaped ball candles.

Needless to say, the heat from all those candles set so closely together caused them to burn down a lot faster than they would have had they been sitting alone.  You can see evidence of this in the snowball candle sitting at 3 o'clock, it's melting down all over the plate it's sitting on.

Twisty and Ball Candles

At the end of December 2012 I acquired this awesome, if not totally unique, twisty candle from my local Salvation Army.  Isn't it awesome?!

It pretty much looks the same from the front and back (whichever you deem as "front" and "back).  Knowing it stood a good possibility that this candle would drip as it melted, I set it on fire in a bowl.

 Because of its twisty-ness, it burned strangely and the wick seemed to fall over as it burned down. It wasn't a very big candle, so it didn't burn for very long - maybe an hour, maybe a little longer. 

So I decided to burn some other candles along with it.  A pretty white ball candle with designs that reminded me of Christmas (you can see the melted out shell of the snowman candle from my previous post in the background) and another ball candle that the sticker on the bottom of it said it was called a Jerusalem Candle.  I love how it looks like stained glass when the flame shines from within.

Snowman Candle

Up next in the burn order (really, there is no "order", so to speak, but since it's mid-December 2012 this one seems fitting) is this cute snowman candle.

Isn't he adorable with the Christmas lights wrapped around his neck?

They go all the way around!

This particular candle was super lightweight, compared to other candles of similar size.  I'm guessing there's a lot more air in the wax in candles made like this one, hence they burn a lot faster, like this one did...

Ball Candles

I love ball shaped candles, especially if they have some kind of pictures or mixed up colors in them.  Like this sunflower ball candle that I burned at the end of October in 2012.  I love the way the flame shows through the wax when it melts down below the top of the candle.  It's so pretty.

This particular candle I either didn't burn it on a regular basis or it took quite some time to melt down.  It's not a particularly large candle so it shouldn't have taken the nearly two months that I find it took to melt it down and move on to the next candle.  Most likely, I was busy, it was over the holiday season that I was burning this candle.

Treasure Candles

I'd have to say that my (nearly) lifelong obsession with things that burn - particularly, candles - began when I found Treasure Candles.

Back in the olden days of the 1980s and 1990s (I think, I had a difficult time finding any information online) there was a company named The Original Treasure Candle Company (eventually acquired in 1997 by GiftStar, Inc.) and they made candles that contained a couple of little trinkets that you'd find as the candle melted down while it burned.  The idea of this, I fell in love with it!  How fun to see what unknown goodies lie inside a hunk of wax, just waiting for me to set it on fire and find them!  That was it, I was hooked!

Throughout my teenage years I owned and melted down many a Treasure Candle.  I had necklaces that had charms I'd found, crystals, little statues, and semi-precious stones, all that I'd fished out of the melted wax and carefully cleaned after removal.

In October of 2012, at a Salvation Army store, I found a Treasure Candle!  Of course I snarfed it up as quickly as I could and took it home to be my first documented candle set aflame (since I'd thought of blogging about my candle obsession)!

Isn't it beautiful?  I love that shade of blue.  And here's an example of a candle people might find as boring and not very unique.  It's all one color, teardrop shaped, and fairly unremarkable, BUT it's a flippin' Treasure Candle and THAT makes up for every other shortcoming this candle has!  Just look at what began to reveal itself as the wax melted away...

Behind the flame there lies...

...a beautiful sun necklace charm!

Melt the Treasure Candle further and we find...

...another necklace charm - a rose quartz heart, and a clear crystal!













This fantastic candle really produced for me!  Too bad it wasn't a Money Candle - yes, that's right, The Original Treasure Candle Company also produced Money Candles, which were exactly what they sounded like - candles with money hidden in them - from $1 to $50!  You never knew what you were gonna get.  I never bought one but if I ever find one out there "in the wild", I'm totally buying it and setting it on fire!

Addiction?

I may have a problem...  A "collecting" problem...  It's definitely a growing problem...  I love candles.  I mean I LOVE candles.  L-O-V-E them!  But!  I'm also very picky when it comes to my candles.  I don't just love any candles, I do have standards.  The candles I love are unique.  Now, I suppose one could argue that every candle is unique in its own way, and while that may be true, I don't see it that way.

I don't love plain old pillar candles or tapers, or candles that are boring and round.  The candles I love must speak to me.  They have to jump off the shelf at me and say "Here I am!  Love me!"  They have to be oddly shaped, or have things embedded in them (shells, trinkets, treasures, etc).  Sometimes, they can be plain and boring to other people but I'll think they're special, in which case I'll claim them for my own.

You may be asking yourself, isn't she going into debt being a candle "collector"?  And I'll answer, no.  The reason is because I only buy my candles from garage sales, The Salvation Army, and other places where candles come super cheap.

You may also ask yourself, if she's "collecting" all these candles where does she store them?  Aren't they taking over her home?  And, again, I'll answer, no, because while I love my candles, I also love to set them on fire - use them for their intended purpose, if you will.  So, while I may have (probably) hundreds of candles, I'm using them up - albeit, not as fast as I'm collecting them...