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 mins
Total Time10 minutes mins
Cost: $3
lighter
scissors
exacto knife
- 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
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.) Fill the votive with water, leaving about 1/2" of space at the top.
Pour a 1/4" layer of oil on top of the water.
Cut out a circle (smaller than the votive opening) from a plastic container or 2L soda bottle.
Poke a small hole in the center or make a small "x" using an exacto knife.
Slide wick through the small hole, about 1/2". Trim wick under the plastic, leaving about 1/4".
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. 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.
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).