The other day Ev’s mom mentioned something about making sand candles years ago.  I had never heard of sand candles before and was very intrigued. We decided to make a family craft day out of it and I’m so glad we did! The Cherry clan had such a fantastic time together making sand candles.  Sand candles are pretty much as they sound, candles made in the sand.  They are surprisingly easy to make and it’s a great art project to do with the whole family.

You need to prep a little for this kind of project.  Here are the list of materials you need.  I am including Amazon links in case you want to buy them online.  I make a small commission if you buy the products from these links.  Thank you so much for your support!

You’ll Need – Candle Wax – we used natural soy wax, wax dye (if the wax isn’t colored already), sand, some tubs, candle wicks, a scissor

Start by digging out any shape you want in the sand.  The bigger it is, the bigger your sand candle will be.  For the star, we put a cookie cutter template in the sand and then with a plastic knife, dug out the sand while the template was still in the sand.  If you take the template out  it can be kind of tricky.  For the round candle we just dug out a little round shape with our hands.  While we dug out shapes in the sand, we shaved some dye off the color cubes and added them to the wax chips in a microwavable tub.  We melted a guestimate of the amount of wax needed in the microwave for about 2 minutes.  It took a little experimenting to get the wax just right and the color to melt throughout.  If you want the color to be in specks, don’t mix it through very much.  If you want a solid color change, mix the wax thoroughly once melted.

Once the wax is melted, pour it in the sand.  You can place the wick in the sand before or after you pour the wax.  We tried both.  Set it aside to dry.  It took about 30 minutes for each candle to dry.

After the wax dries you can dig the candle out of the sand.  It comes out pretty easily.  We took a paintbrush to wipe off any excess sand.  While Gigi and I worked on the star and circle candles, Ev and his mom created a mega candle in an unusual shape.  They added some bits and pieces found around the house, including a little wire  butterfly.  Gigi really loved this one!  We also decided to double dip the star and the circle by creating a bigger circle around both, placing them in the sand, and pouring another layer of wax around each one.  The two colors made the candles look really beautiful.

When all the candles set, we trimmed the wicks with a scissor.  You can save the cut off part to reuse.  The results are pretty gorgeous I think.  We all felt pretty impressed with ourselves.  We lit them that night but I didn’t get any pics.  They looked beautiful though! This is a terrific family art project.  There are lots of steps that are fun for adults and kids and the candles look great, pretty much no matter what.  Hopefully this is just the first of many family art days to come.