Orange Peel Candles

Have you seen these orange candles floating around pinterest?

I hadn’t a clue about them until Stacey  from Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy gave me the heads up on them on instagram (I’m @deliacreates). Thanks Stacy!

I hunted down a pin that lead to a site with a great tutorial. Go here.

Then, I wondered if it really worked, so I gave it a go.

The answer (obviously, since you saw my top picture)  is yes, it works. 🙂

It just might take some practice and more than a few tries.

Ahem…or a lot of tries.

I got three candles to work out of eight. The more I made, the easier it got. It was still kind of a frustrating process though.

So here are some tips that will hopefully make things easier:

1. Make sure you only use orange peels with a really long pith wick. It just won’t work otherwise. This might mean you’ll be wasting some orange peels trying to get ones that might work.

2. Fill it with olive oil like it recommends in the tutorial, but only very slightly coat the tip with oil. I found that if I doused it, it wouldn’t light.

3. When you fill it with oil, the pith in the peel absorbs a lot of it, so you might have to refill it again after your initial pour.

You can also add a little more oil to an already burning orange candle to keep it burning longer. I do not however recommend using the orange candle on multiple occasions and just refilling it with oil every time. I just wouldn’t take chances with fire like that.

4. Be patient with lighting it. It will take a few tries. Once you get it to light, don’t talk, don’t breath, no sudden movements. I’m serious. The flame is very small, and fragile for the first few minutes.
Once it gets going though, it will give you a nice, long burning flame that won’t easily go out. If it does go out it should relight just fine.

There were a few that I  would get burning, but then they would go out too easily. After trying to relight it too many times the wick became useless. So, carefully take care of that initial flame.

Trust me when I say that a lighter or a candle will not work. The lighter will burn you, because you can’t tilt the oil filled peel to the lighter, and the candle will drop wax into the oil.
*Use matches, or better yet, a fireplace match or a long tipped lighter.

5. My last tip is to buy extra oranges and keep trying.

It produces such a pretty effect that I think is worth it. And don’t throw out the duds. The peels look very lovely with a tea light nestled inside.

You can also use the duds to stabilize a peel that doesn’t have a good base. Plop the unsteady one inside a steady dud and your candle is now safe for your table.

If you think these candles look pretty in daylight, take a peek at them in the dark:

Stunning right? I think these would go great with almost any table scape, for any holiday, during any season. How pretty for a fancy summer picnic, a spring wedding, for Halloween, or among Christmas greenery for the holidays.

I love how it has such a fresh, impressive look. If I can get good enough to make these work without using a million matches, I might just add them to our Christmas Eve dinner table this year. 🙂

Have you tried these? I would love to hear your tips as well!

Merry crafting!