making butter (kind of)
happy valentines day, a good day to share a recent, small labor of love i did for a dear friend of mine. lisa and i went to college and lived on the same floor. when i got a remote job, she helped me find a new place in jersey city and so i've lived within a couple of blocks from her ever since - for over a decade now. if you've been to jerseyscript you may have had the pleasure of meeting her. lisa has a lot of style and her home has a lot of nice things that i like to touch and ooh and ahh at. one of those things is a ceramic piece of toast with a little butter candle by collin garrity.
lisa got the toast at a brick and mortar store, so she didn't know about the creator or the fact that he actually sells refill butter candles. she knows that now, but before i figured it out i offered to make some refill butter tabs so she didn't have to be precious about the one left that she had. i also wanted a chance to try out making molds for candles for the first time.
i got a this moldgel set on blick because it was cheap, plant-based and not very intimidating for a first-timer. i used distilled water, a rectangle candle mold to contain everything, and i made the "butter" out of polymer clay from a tracing i made of lisa's original candle.
when you mix 2.5 parts water to each part of the powder, it turns pink and then it turns white as it hardens. i fucking love science.
i poured the mold goo into the rectangle silicone mold and then popped my polymer "butter" tabs into it. it only took a few minutes for the mold to form, i think i left it in there for 10 minutes tops as i was melting the wax.
the mold was not perfectly smooth, see the bubbles, but that was probably because i didn't whisk it. wax can be very forgiving and i was able to carve and melt off the imperfections. these molds are technically single-use, by the way, and you're supposed to use them pretty soon after they're made because they shrink and crack as they dry out.
i poured soy pillar wax with yellow dye, no fragrance. i had some extra wax that i poured into another mold and then remelted it so i can make a second set of butter tabs. the mold held up pretty well through the two sessions over about an hour - the tabs are small so the wax didn't take long to harden enough to pull out and wick.
here's the wax almost hardened, and i stuck a hole with an awl in each so that it would be easy for me to wick them. i used a clay scraping tool to scratch off any bumps from the mold bubbles, and a heating gun to smooth the surface.
now lisa has 4 cute little soy-based tabs of butter to use! i shan't make these ever again now that we know that collin makes and sells refills and i'm not trying to get in his bag like that - in fact, i just ordered myself an egg because i'm on an egg candle kick as you know - but i at least learned a lot from this mold-making process. i even got to break out the polymer clay after a long hiatus from that, so i guess i need to come up with some new cute little things to make, mold and pour.
xoxo jenn
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