Who knew this little project would provide so much motivation for me and be such a great jumpstart on Christmas presents at the same time?  In preparing for the 30 Days of Creativity, I spent some time searching around on some blogs that I like for some inspiration.  I have about 10 projects in the queue just from that looking around.  Today, I went to Hobby Lobby to pick up the items I need to get started on my Martha-inspired teacup candles, along with hitting two more thrift stores on my lunch break where I found four more teacups (two of them complete with saucers for $.99 a piece).

Normally, I would have come home from all of that shopping and tucked my treasures away in my craft room (which is a whole 'nother subject…it's more like a junk room right now but I'm going to try to fix that this weekend, too) and called it a night.  However, I didn't feel like I could say that shopping two days in a row was my creative act.  Shopping isn't much of a challenge for me, so I decided to convert my supplies into a completed project or two.

While at Hobby Lobby, I bought wicks with the little tabs on the bottom, wax crystals, and some Cappuccino candle fragrance (I thought cappuccino was a fun play on the teacups, but it really smells more like cookies than anything else).  This my first attempt at candles, so I'm no expert, but part of the challenge is sharing, so I'll share how it went.  I started by gluing the tabs from the wicks to the bottom of the cups and then the boiling began.

Here's my "double boiler" in action – aka a metal bowl placed in a small pot of boiling water.  I love how when the crystals are allowed to melt undisturbed they form a little circle in the middle.  Ever so often a little bubble would pop out and send crystals shooting through the water.  That's what happened on the left there.

Here's three different cups in various stages of melting.  The top one was done first, so was the most solid, followed by the right one and the left one.  I need to do some work on getting the top to level out.  The instructions said to poke little holes in the well there and then fill it a little more with wax.  I did that and am still waiting for it to get solid enough for me to tell if it worked.

This picture just shows you a little better view of the cups themselves.  I picked the two on the left up today and the one on the right is the one that started it all last night.  Of course, once they solidify, I will trim the wicks.

I have two more cups to fill, but I ran out of wax.  I had no idea how much wax I would need for the candles I wanted to make, so I will pick some more up tomorrow.  This was a fun, instant gratification project and it has gotten me started on Christmas presents, plus my house smells great!