I love candles and any excuse to light a few. I love to light candles on rainy evenings and snowy weekends. Just a forecast for snow gets me excited to light candles. love candles over three day weekends in the winter.
My favorite places to shop for candles are Bath & Body Works and the Capri candles at Anthropologie are a favorite.
And, I can’t walk into a HomeGoods without taking a peek down the candle section. All of these candles have one thing in common: great packaging! The jars are glass
For me, candles are the closest thing to a wood burning fireplace in a state that has largely banned wood-burning fireplaces in residential homes. I wonder if candle sales are higher in Colorado than states that allow wood-burning fireplaces?
Candles give many of us a feeling of warmth, home, comfort and peace.
So with almost empty glass jars piling up after the holidays, I had to find an easy way to upcycle candle jars.
And, I discovered the key to cleaning out the wax was to freeze the jars, followed by hot water. That’s it! For an entire month, my freezer had a 1/2 dozen candle jars.
And, when I had a few minutes I boiled water and watched the frozen wax pop out or break down into smaller pieces. The wax residue just needed soapy water and a little elbow grease.
Have you seen this new brand at Target?
The results were awesome and all of sudden these beautiful candle jars can be re-purposed for new uses. Stay tuned!
Sharing:
Heather says
January 24, 2019 at 5:34 amI have saved a few candle jars. Those are all my favorite candle places too.
Barbara Smith says
February 11, 2019 at 6:52 amI’ve always upcycled my candle jars! They hold my cotton swabs, cotton balls, bandaids, everything!!!! Thanks for a pretty post!!! As always, you take great pictures! Blessings!
lauran says
February 11, 2019 at 2:39 pmThank you Barbara for the sweet comment! laura
paperandvine says
March 20, 2019 at 10:59 amHi Laura, so pleased to come across your blog for the first time today and find another Denver-area home blogger :)! Hope you are staying warm this week – it’s so pretty and sunny out today but the temps are still too low for my liking!
I hadn’t heard of this freezing and THEN adding hot water method – this sure seems a lot less messy than the method I’ve been using! I’ll have to try it your way next time. I’ve been heating up my candles on the stove (a few at a time set inside a pot) to get the wax in liquid form and them pouring them into moulds so I can use them in a wax warmer, which gets me some extra mileage from my favorite scented candles – but it sure is MESSY!
I agree with you that the candles at Home Goods, TJ Maxx, etc. have the prettiest packaging! There’s also the Patriot Candles I’ve been buying for years at Denver-area Walgreens (not sure if they have them in other areas or states) in pretty amber (Whiskey & Tobacco) and bottle green (Absinthe & Black Fig) glass apothecary-style jars – those two are my FAVORITE scents for fall and winter! If you go looking for them just make sure I haven’t been to your local store first because I’ll have bought them all up :)!
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