Candle shapes are as varied as are the shapes of all natural and man-made objects — you can make a candle the shape of a tin can, or the shape of a banana. You can mold, carve, sculpt wax into figurines, flowers, fruits, and any number of other shapes to suit your fancy.

At Christmas, candlemakers make the usual decorations — Santa Clauses, Christmas trees, wreaths, baubles, etc. You can simulate just about anything with candle wax for just about any occasion or purpose you wish.

In this chapter, we are going to discuss what you can do with the basic shapes such as the cylinder, block, square, etc., and provide detailed instructions for making them. In addition, we are going to show you how to make some more complex — yet still fairly simple — shapes.

Wax Works

You can make candle shapes from all the methods of making candles that you have learned so far — dipping, molding, using sheet wax, etc. Of course, candles made in containers take on the shape of the container. Many objects used for making container candles will also serve as molds if you like a particular shape for that purpose.

Sheet wax is probably the simplest method for making a variety of shapes with little effort. Next in ease comes hand-molding.

Purchased sheets of embossed beeswax, for example, can be rolled into numerous shapes other than the plain taper or square, as we have already shown. (Refer back to the section on rolled beeswax candles in Chapter 6.)

Once you have made a plain rolled taper, you can bend and squeeze it into different shapes. You can also join two or more tapers together (see “Making Taper Trees from Danish Tapers,” p. 168) to make interesting shapes. If you buy beeswax sheets in various colors, you can fold one or more sheets together so that your candle's shape displays the colors of the wax. For example, you can lay two different colored sheets of beeswax one on top of the other, and roll on the diagonal. Since beeswax is soft and sticky, it is easy to roll and mold into interesting shapes.

Gentle Beeswax

With beeswax sheets, you can stick to simple, basic shapes — such as the taper and spiral — or you can be as creative as you want. As beeswax is malleable at room temperature (in a fairly warm room), you can make these rolled candles easily and in many shapes — as complicated as you like. You can cut the sheets into strips of color and wind these around a basic taper to make parts of it thicker or thinner as well as adding different colors to the shape. With the same method, you can quite easily create spirals, diamonds, cones, pyramids, and other shapes.

To make a cone, simply roll the beeswax sheet into a cone shape. To make an ice-cream cone using a beeswax cone made from a sheet of beeswax, simply add a “scoop” of hand-molded wax that has been sculpted into a round shape. It needn't be smooth — just as a scoop of real ice cream is not perfectly round. This is a wonderful project to do with children, who get a big thrill out of lighting their “ice-cream cones.” It's great for a child's birthday party, or as favors for any occasion. Even adults love getting an ice-cream cone candle!