Winter usually is the time when a lot of citrus fruits are consumed. And if you want to do some fun stuff with the orange peels, that usually get thrown away, then this post is for you.
I guess there are hundreds of ways to use leftover citrus peels - I'm going to show you how to make citrus candles. It's really easy and a fun thing to do together with children [your or your relative], and in the result, you get some unique things that you can use as gifts.
Things that are required for this project:
- knife, jar and a pot
- some citrus fruits: oranges, grapefruit, lemon
- candle wax [or some old candles, or candle leftovers] and special thread [probably you will have to look for these things online]
The trickiest part in this is pealing the fruits. You can cut them in half's and then try to get the fruit out of the peel. I usually take the knife and just cut around the orange and then slowly try to get the peel off of the fruit. When it's off it has to be in one peace - it can't have any big slits in it. After a couple of tries, it gets really easy to do.
When the peel is off, you can measure and cut your threads. Don't make them too long.
Now it's time to melt the wax. Put your wax or old candle leftovers in a jar and the jar itself in a pot with water and boil it. When the water is just about to start boiling, turn the heat to a minimum so that it keeps the water warm. It takes a while for the wax to melt. You can use some old candles for coloring the wax.
When the wax is completely melted, I usually take a small piece to fix down the end of the thread. It's important that the thread is in the middle so that when it burns, the fire won't reach the peel.
When the thread is steady in the place, pour the rest of the wax into the mold. Make sure there are no leaks. At this point, the top part of the thread needs to be held in a place. I used some chopsticks so that the thread can lean against it.
Now the wax needs to cool down - put it outside, in some cold part of the house or simple in the freezer. Time required for wax to harden depends on the surrounding temperature. The colder it will be, the faster it' going to harden. After that, cut off the unnecessary thread. It needs to be just a centimeter / 0.4 inches above the wax. And that's it - now you got yourself a fruit candle. You can add some aromatic additive to the wax if you want to make it really nice.
Thats it for now.