How to make shell candles – a simple DIY tutorial.
On a recent holiday to the very beautiful Gale in Portugal we found a host of treasures upon the beach. The shells thrown up by the morning tide were just huge. The children gathered them eagerly knowing I world love them and presented me with a whole bucket full.
They were perfect.
We had to bring them home even though they had to fight for space in our luggage.
What to do with them though?
Well I turned to Pinterest for some inspiration and immediately feel upon some seasshell tealights that looked just adorable. I found a fair few of these all with slightly different instructions so I sort of cobbled together my own form them al and it worked for us!
How to Make Shell Candles – What you need
Large shells
Fragrant Oil (optional)
and a tray
How to make shell candles – Method
- My littlest was a willing helper and she washed out and dried all the shells so the sand was totally removed
- Next I used the hot glue gun to stick in the tealight wicks aiming for a flat surface and round about the centre.
- The wax was placed in a jug (1 tablespoon of wax per tealight (roughly) and I added about 10 drops of fragrance to the jug which I filled for 6 tealights.
- I used chocolate, coconut and rose fragrances (not altogether!) the coconut were my favourite.
- I microwaved the wax for 2 minutes till it became pure liquid then poured it into the shells.
- Within 30 minutes the shell were set and the candles ready to be lit or packaged up as gifts.
I poured the hot wax and twiddled the glue gun but the rest my daughter was fully able to engage in from initially washing the shells, choosing the fragrance, turning on the microwave and measuring out the wax to packaging the gifts. A lovely craft for you to do together
So simple, absolutely adorable and a lovely reminder of our holiday. Take a look here for some more beach art ideas
A book for Nature Craft lovers
Nature craft lovers should take a peek at my book A year of nature craft and play for tons more nature crafts ideas that follow the seasons.
Happy crafting everyone
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I am a avid collector of shells and a local beach washes up hundreds of beautiful oyster shells, I am now going to turn some into candles…
I love these – such a delightful idea! One question: what do you do with them once the candle has been used? Can you compost them or something ? Or keep refilling them with new candles?