Candle Making Activity

Today was yet another day but a little different, because I did my first CAS activity which was candle making. This comes under creativity and service.

“An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail” - Edwin land

I am so akin to creativity, that i feels it’s a part of me. I was excited because firstly it involved creativity and secondly i would learn many new things and skills.

Before the activity, I developed a fear that this activity might be difficult and I will not be able to do it. But slowly as I got familiar with the techniques and procedure, I felt that this activity is simple, easy and fun. Things which we needed for the activity were easily available, so we didn't have to worry about the   materials used.

First we'll see what all we need to make a candle:

THINGS NEEDED:

• Wax or wax granules

•Wax colours or wax crayons

• Utensils

• Moulds

• Wick or thread

• Oil

• Dough

When everybody was ready with the materials, Deepshri ma'am, our activity supervisor, instructed us how to do it and what all precautions we should take.

Now let's see the procedure. It is not difficult, but we have to be careful as we are dealing with fire and molten wax.

PROCEDURE:

• First we take one large bowl and one small.

• We fill at least 1 inch water in the bigger bowl.

• After we have filled the bigger bowl with water, place the small bowl in it.

• We keep both the bowls on the Bunsen burner or on the gas. As we did this activity in our chemistry lab, we placed it on the burner.

• This setup is known as double boiler.

• After the water is heated. Put the amount of wax needed to fill the mould.

• Keep stirring the wax, so that it will melt soon.

•      

Supervisor Mrs Deepshri guiding us.

   On the other hand, apply some oil inside the mould. Once you have applied oil, you can add glitter powder for decoration.

   Now put a wick through the mould. If you don’t have a wick, you can make one buy putting a piece of thread in the melted wax. When it’s cooled, use it as your wick.

• After this, apply some dough beneath the mould as it will stop the wax to come out. 

• When the wax is fully melted inside the bowl, add some wax color. If you don’t have wax color, you can put wax crayons to give it some color.

•  When the color is mixed properly, pour the wax into the mould. Be carefully while pouring.

•  Now you can keep the candle for cooling. 

    Your candle is ready!

Me (right) and my friend Shradha (left) melting wax.

It was a great experience for me. I had a great time making candles with my classmates and myself. All of us were given a target of making 100 candles in total. Knowing we had to complete the target, we always made a small target for each period of time, while we were doing the activity and we strictly followed the target. This activity is a time consuming one. I learned to be more open with my classmates and my teachers. I gained confidence and learned to be more patient. I also learned to share my ideas, being responsible and how to accept new atmosphere and how to adapt to new techniques. At the end, I was happy with the work I did. We had to sell the candles, for raising funds, for the underprivileged children. Let’s hope it’ll happen soon. Till then enjoy!