Candle Making Workshop in Rumsiskes, Lithuania., a set on Flickr - click on the link at the beginning of the sentence to see the slides instead of these small thumbnails.
On the third day of our Lithuanian tour we went to the historic community open air museum near Rumsiskes. The area is set up in fragments of villages. It was established in 1966 and is a wonderful depiction of Lithuanian life with 140 buildings, flower gardens, orchards, etc. We were lucky to get to take a candle making workshop and each of us got to try the old-fashioned way of pouring candles.
We discovered that the wax has to be kept at a relatively low temperature - I think wax melts at 140 degrees F. If it gets warmer than that, it won't harden on the wick and just slides right back down into the bowl.
In the end you get a candle that is long and pretty, but a little out of shape. A rolling pin/board is then used to even it up and to make an end for a candle holder.
We each went away with a candle and had a great time - not to mention a really good lunch of traditional food. To see the labels on the slide, click on each individual slide.
Loving your posts and pictures of your trip - thank you :) This one brought back happy memories. When I was homeschooling my kids, we made candles a few times. We melted the wax in a can, standing in a pot of water. Each person had a piece of wick, dipped it in the can and went to the end of the line of people. We found that around 6 people was good - enough to let the wax harden enough to stay on the wick the next time it was dipped. And fun, because we had to invite friends over to make up the six. Fewer people and the kids (well, and maybe the adults too) got too keen to wait, dipped too soon, and ended up losing the wax. If you make the wick long you can dip both ends, getting 2 candles, and making it easy to hang them to harden completely, cutting the wick afterwards.
ReplyDelete