Creating floating flowers is more complicated than making simple floating candles. Still, it is fun to do and you can create beautiful floating candles with this method. Essentially, you hand-mold sheet wax into shapes that are layered to create the flower effect. This is really an exciting method. Since wax is a very versatile, flexible medium, there is practically no limit to what you can achieve. After you have developed the skill of sculpting/hand-molding, you can transform sheets of wax into many beautiful and thrilling forms.

The Process

To make floating flower candles you will need:

• Your usual melting/candlemaking equipment: double-boiler or concealed-element heater, thermometer, ladle

• Three melting cans, one for each color

• Three 8″ × 8″ square cake pans

• Cake pan

• Aluminum foil

• Pastry cutter or palette knife

• Paraffin wax and beeswax — ½ pound of each

• Cored wick

• Pan spray or vegetable oil

• Color chips — one red, one green

Note: This project requires thicker sheets of wax than usual. Therefore, pour the wax about ¼″ deep into each pan, one color per pan.

To begin, melt the wax and divide it equally among the three cans. Add a bit of the red chip to one can to make a pink color; add enough red to the second can to make a deep rose color; color the third green to represent leaves.

Pour each color into one of the cake pans as noted above. Allow to cool for about l0 minutes, to a pliable stage.

Using the pastry cutter or palette knife, cut petal shapes of different sizes. Have 4″ lengths of wick ready.

Cut several petals out of both the pink and rose sheets and cut some leaf shapes out of the green wax.

With your fingers, shape and curve the cutouts upward, like a flower forms petals. It takes a little while to get the feel for this, but once you feel the pliability of the wax under your fingers you'll enjoy it immensely. It is a wonderful tactile experience as well as a visually pleasing artistic endeavor.

Using the green leaf shapes as the bottom layer, squeeze them around the wick, allowing ½″ of wick to stick out the bottom. Start adding the rose petals in layers, using wax glue or warming the wax so it will be sticky (the beeswax helps here). As you work, bend the wax petals to mimic the upward curve of flower petals. You will need to work quickly — and keep your blow-dryer handy to warm the wax if it cools and becomes brittle. Keep adding petals, with the pink layer on top, until you have enough to make a sturdy candle that is evenly spaced and won't tip over when it is put on the water. Make sure your base is relatively flat.

Once you have finished, tuck any remaining wick at the bottom into the green wax so that it won't absorb water.

Continue with this process until you have made flowers out of all the wax. Depending on the size flowers you make, this recipe will give you six to eight floating flower candles. You can scent the wax at the melted stage if you want a particular flower fragrance.

Daisy, Daisy

You can make another interesting flower floating candle by using three daisy-shaped cutters in small, medium, and large. Cut out the shapes in appropriately colored wax and hand-mold them so that the sides turn upwards. Then put the shapes on top of one another, largest on the bottom, medium in the middle, smallest on top. Wick according to the wicking hardened wax method.