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3 water candles lit
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Water Candles

Make your own candles with water and oil! These water candles burn for 3 hours and are easy to make.
Active Time10 minutes
Total Time10 minutes
Cost: $3

Equipment

  • lighter
  • scissors
  • exacto knife

Materials

  • glass votive or jar
  • water
  • oil (vegetable, canola, etc. Lamp oil works too.)
  • sand optional
  • small toys optional
  • plastic container (soda bottle, food packaging, etc.)
  • candle wick

Instructions

  • Add a few spoonfuls of sand into a glass votive or jar.
    Add a few toys.
    Marbles are also pretty to use in water candles.
    (If making a basic water candle omit this step.)
    sand and sea toys inside candle votive
  • Fill the votive with water, leaving about 1/2" of space at the top.
    water pouring into votive
  • Pour a 1/4" layer of oil on top of the water.
    oil poured into votive with water
  • Cut out a circle (smaller than the votive opening) from a plastic container or 2L soda bottle.
    plastic strawberry container and scissors
  • Poke a small hole in the center or make a small "x" using an exacto knife.
    circle of plastic and exacto knife
  • Slide wick through the small hole, about 1/2". Trim wick under the plastic, leaving about 1/4".
    wick slid through plastic hole
  • Place plastic and wick on top of the oil in the candle.
    Note: Make sure that the wick is standing up straight and not leaning. If it is leaning it will droop over and touch the oil which will burn it out.
    fingers placing wick on top of candle
  • Light candle.
    Candles with 1/4" of oil will burn for 3-4 hours. When the candle runs out of oil simply remove the plastic circle, add more oil, place plastic on top and light again.
    Replace wick as needed.
    3 water candles lit

Video

Notes

Oil: most types of cooking oils will work (canola, vegetable, sunflower, etc.) You can also use lamp oil.
Wicks: we tried several types of wicks and the basic wax-coated ones that we've used in the past for candle projects worked great. We've also heard that you can use the wick from a birthday candle (break it open and pull it out).