The Distressed Cabinet (It's okay, the distress is intentional)

In a slight change of programme, I've decided to now make this a blog about my creative projects in general. It's a nice distraction and it allows me to show people how I've done some of the things I have in a simple way (I hope).

This weekend I've been working on creating a distressed bedside cabinet for my guest bedroom. It's not yet complete (the small issue of not being able to find suitable handles is stopping that happening) but I thought I'd share the handiwork so far.

This is what I started off with - a bedside cabinet bought for £10 from a second hand shop near Hirwaun:

My bargain piece of furniture.

The drawers inside are not great and if I was more adept (and more bothered) I would maybe consider replacing the buckled innards with new MDF but for the time being it will hold a lamp and whatever else you want on top of it which is the main purpose.

I've previously used chalk paint on other furniture (a chair and two bookshelves) but this was my first time sealing everything with varnish so I'll let you know how that all goes.

Essentially, I've done two coats of chalk paint (the kind I have is Annie Sloan in Original - click here for the link) on this cabinet. It doesn't matter that it's not real wood - chalk paint will pretty much stick to anything and stay there. There are other brands of chalk paint available locally too (Frenchic being one) but I've only ever used Annie Sloan myself - I'm sure it's all good though!

After just one coat of Original - looks alright! One other needed.

As I was painting, I decided that I may try and get some wallpaper to cover the top of the cabinet to give it a bit of colour and make it a little bit more interesting to look at. The theme in my guest bedroom is sort of travel / globe / world related and so I went with that theme to try and find some wallpaper. More on that shortly.

When two coats of paint have been applied, I then distressed the furniture I spent time so lovingly painting. This is pretty fun but should be done outside because the dust created is ridiculous. You can use sandpaper to distress but I have bought a sandpaper-type block that is easy to hold and easy to use from B & Q. I bought it last year so I don't remember how much it cost me but it wasn't very much at all and I've used it for all the furniture I've distressed so far.

Aim for corners and ledges when distressing as these will be the easiest bits to get to. If you want particular other parts rubbed down you might be going for a while.

Distressed edges.

Before the distressing (and after two coats of paint) I went to B & Q to buy some varnish. I chose some clear satin varnish from B & Q's own brand (Colours) and went for a smaller tin which only cost around £6. While I was there, I also picked up a lovely wallpaper sample for nothing:

Wallpaper sample from B & Q.

This is the wallpaper itself on the website, in case you're interested. Reduced too! Bargain!

Like the absolute pro that I am, I simply cut the wallpaper sample down to the right size and then used PVA glue to hold it in place on top of the cabinet. I did smooth it down with a large jar candle because - like all paper and glue - it went a little bit wrinkly.

Wrinkles are slightly visible ... Oh well!

I then varnished the whole thing and left it to dry overnight. The tin recommends two coats but I think one is fine for the time being. Considering I literally want this as a lamp-holder for my guest bedroom, I think it will be okay.

When I acquire handles, I shall post the results!

So far, for around £15 I think it's scrubbed up alright ...

Makin' Melts

I don't want to just be stuck with making candles in jars so last night I decided that I would try out making some melts. From browsing through Pinterest I discovered that an easy way of making melts is with chocolate moulds or with cake cups - so when I bought all of my candle making paraphernalia I bought a couple of silicone moulds to go with it. So far I've had a flower-shaped mould and I'm still waiting for my star-shaped one to arrive.

From trials I've done myself, I've realised I need to include a lot more in the way of fragrances, so for this I used a Sweet Orange essential oil and I had just over half a pint's worth of soy wax in my jug.

I did everything as usual, adding the essential oil to the mixture (for 15 small melts I used 35 drops of oil) and some coloured crayon (in hindsight I should have used a little more but the colour came out alright).

Then once the mixture was ready, just poured it into the mould to cool.

It was a little messy as you can see but because of the silicone it was really easy to clean up and make the melts look good after they were cool enough.

I left them for around an hour to cool in the moulds and then popped them out fairly easily to tidy them up and to put them in a container to cool further in the fridge overnight.

The finished product - Sweet Orange wax melts for your warmers.

They smell pretty good in fairness, I just wish they were a little bit more orange! Trial and error stages at the moment but I'm hoping I'm getting there.

Some stuff I've made so far ... Lavender, Earl Grey and Sweet Orange wax melts.

Adventures in Soy

Last week, I bought myself some soy wax from Amazon. I wanted to experiment further with candle making in order to find a method that worked best for me, so soy was definitely on the agenda.

I measured and melted everything as normal - soy wax takes much less time to melt in the pan, so this was good for me as I'm pretty impatient as a human being.

It did, however, seem to take much longer to set than the other stuff I bought (it must have been some kind of paraffin wax from Hobbycraft but it didn't say on it so I couldn't really comment). I countered this by putting it in the fridge for around 20-25 minutes, which helped a lot with the cooling / setting process.

When melted, soy wax has a very unfortunate colour (I had also added lemon juice and bergamot essential oil to my mixture as I was aiming to make an Earl Grey candle).

Unfortunate-looking melted soy wax ...

Even though I was only making this for myself, I was still a little disappointed at the colour of it. Because it was also taking a long time to set, I was worrying that I had messed with the consistency of the mixture by adding lemon juice, and that it might not set for a long time.

However ... When it cooled it came out a lovely off-white colour like I had imagined in my head!

Yay! It looks nice!

I added some loose Earl Grey tea leaves to decorate the candle - this actually has a nice crackling effect as it burns.

Soy wax Earl Grey candle - decorated with tea leaves.

As for the scent - I used the juice of half a lemon in my soy wax mixture (as Earl Grey is often served with a lemon) and the bergamot essential oil provides the rest of the tea-like scent. The tea leaves on top provide a subtle smell of Earl Grey and also look quite nice against the white candle.

So far, the burn on the soy candle isn't too bad but I need to keep an eye on this for my own knowledge. I don't think I've ever had a soy candle before so this is all new to me.

How To Do The Making Candles Thing (and stuff)

I thought it might be handy to just kind of do a step by step of how I went about making candles.

First of all I looked up how to do it on Pinterest. This is one of my favourite sites ever because it's just far superior to Tumblr (which I may be too old and uncool to understand). Pinterest and its creative users suggested getting wax flakes, a glue gun, wax crayons of varying colours and pre-waxed wicks (the freestanding kind, not the in-a-windy-ball kind) in varying lengths.

And that's exactly what I did. I went to my local Hobbycraft (other craft stores are available) and purchased these essentials just to trial the process.

I also bought some essential oils from Holland and Barratt - this was great as they were doing the Penny Sale and the oils were on the sale. The woman behind the till seemed very excited about it.

Here is the initial selection of fragrances.

My instructions are according to Pinterest, websites, and my own trial. So here goes.

Step One: Measure out your wax

All tutorials on making your own candles suggest to use double the amount of wax to the size of the container that you have.

Mixer glasses - 4 for £1.50 in Tesco.

Wax ready to go!

Step Two: Getting your container ready

Whatever you're putting your candle in, make sure it's clean and then stick your wick in it. You can use wax to hold your wick in place, but I read that you can also glue it to the container using a glue gun, so I did this. The glue gun I got was on sale in Hobbycraft and it was also pink, so why not?

Lots of tutorials recommend holding your wick in place with pens, skewers or even chopsticks. This wick was slightly too short to be held in place with implements, but it was very sturdy so it did not matter.

My Hobbycraft glue gun - £5 on sale. Came with two glue sticks which seem to be lasting pretty well at the moment so I'm happy.

Step Three: Melting the wax flakes

In the same way you'd melt chocolate, melt your wax in a glass container of some description over a pan of boiling water. This takes a little while and the water can splash out of the pan. I have seen other tutorials suggesting that you use a microwave to heat your wax - perhaps if you're a little impatient you could try it (but I haven't done this myself yet so I'm scared to suggest others do it!).

Melting the wax ...

To melt the wax, I have been stirring using a wooden spoon and when the leftover wax cools on the spoon, scraping the remnants back into the wax mixture.

One the wax starts melting, stir regularly until it becomes liquefied.

Step Four: Adding colour

If you want to add colour to your candles in an easy and inexpensive way, tutorials were recommending using crayons. I bought a pack in a pound shop as I knew I was going to cut them up. Add a little at a time - if you want a more intense colour, add quite a few chunks as the colour will be lighter when the wax cools. At the moment, I don't see any need to use a whole crayon for one candle, but maybe if you're making a big one that needs an intense colour it could be an option.

Take a little bit at a time...

Add to the mixture. Keep adding little chunks for a more intense colour.

Step Five: Adding scent (essential oils)

As time goes on, I will experiment with other means of making scented candles. For now, I am using easy methods and sticking with essential oils until I crack the perfect method for what I want.

Tutorials were recommending different things, so I decided to just experiment. For this particular candle, I added 12 drops of lavender oil. I liked the intensity of the scent in the mixture so felt this was adequate. I may add a little more in future as, when burning, the smell was quite subtle.

Step Six: Pouring

Sounds straightforward, and in fairness it is. When your mixture is entirely melted, the colour is right and the scent is good, pour your wax into your desired container. If you are using tools to hold your wick in place, make sure it is central to the container before pouring. If you are not holding the wick in place with anything in particular, pour the wax and ensure the wick is straight after adding the mixture.

Step Seven: Decorating your container

I wanted to decorate my container so I opted for some lace-style ribbon, decorative roses and little tags to write on. On each tag I write the scent and the date on which the candle was made.

The finished product!

Step Eight: Light!

Of course, candles are made to be lit. Here is this particular one in action.

Lavender scented candle in action.

Some random things I faced while making candles (and maybe how to solve them):

Sink hole-style craters in your candles around the wick as it cools

Apparently, this is fairly normal, and the solution to this is to not fill your container entirely with wax at first. Keep some aside, reheat once the candle is set and pour the remaining wax on top to even it out. Some wax is, according to the internet, "one-pour wax" and shouldn't have this problem, but other wax needs a top-up to make it not look like the surface of the moon.

Random white spots in the candle because I left it to cool in the sun

Yes, this also happened. I don't really know why (probably because of Science). I feel this is because I left it to cool in direct sunlight and so I am blaming that for now. When I made the practice candles, I made them at night and they cooled overnight. This one was made in the morning and left to cool during the day in my south-facing kitchen. I plan to avoid this in future because I'm not sure people will like candles that look a little bit unwell.

And that is really it. I am also playing around with using glitter to decorate candles. Results of that experiment to follow!

This is my thing now

So I decided sometime this week that I need a hobby that doesn't involve me being out 99 nights of the week, that would be relaxing and that would allow me to be creative.

For some reason, my brain came up with candles.

And now I'm going to blog about that. You have been warned.