My Creative Workbook

Christine de Beer - effortless floral craftsman

Melting Wax for Floral Art

Read up on handling hot wax if you are unsure of how to do it safely. Research your materials to make sure you know the difference between its flash-point and melting point. For Floral Art the temperature of the wax rarely exceeds the minimum melting point.

Melting wax

Pour boiling water into a large pot or double boiler. Set a smaller pot into the water and add a small amount of wax. Set aside to give the wax time to soften, become pliable or melt. If you need a continues supply of liquid wax place the double boiler on a stove top and switch on the lowest setting. You want the wax to barely melt. Work in small batches to have control over the melting temperature.

If you are colouring the wax decide how many batches you are planning to use and set aside equal amounts of colourant for each batch. If you alter the colour during testing add or subtract colourant for the other batches. I use wax crayons to colour my wax because it is easy to control the end result.

For most projects I use the stumps of Paraffin wax candles (left over from other designs) that I clean and melt down because it is so economical. Soy wax is an eco-friendly option or try natural (but pricey) beeswax.

Don’t pour leftover wax down the drain. Scrape the wax into a small bag and keep for future use. The disk for my FLOAT design was made from the last bit of wax leftover in a pot.

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Related Designs

3 February 2011 I've got my head in the clouds

Wax and Rainbow Oasis keep the flower heads in place.

1 March 2011 FLOAT

Reflex Tulip and Passion Fruit Tendrils in a wax disk

18 March 2011 SHAPE

Chrysanthemum Hourglass

13 April 2011 Harnessing the Wind

14 February 2013 Making it work somewhere between a rock and a hard place

Sometimes creative blunders becomes creative inspiration

28 December 2016 A Jingle Cotton Christmas

Cover a wreath frame with bark and cotton for a textured Christmas wreath design