Beeswax candles

Step by step guide

Looking for a fun and creative Christmas project? Handmade beeswax Christmas candles are fun and easy to make. With some simple laser cutting and hand rolling, you can create unique and personalized gifts or decorations that give off a beautiful fragrance of beeswax. Take this opportunity to light these sweet-smelling candles and celebrate a truly sweet and wonderful Christmas. Below is a step-by-step tutorial to show you how to make them.

Preparation

Required material Christmas Tree Candles:

One sheet of beeswax (215mm x 100mm) in green
one natural-coloredsheet of beeswax
(215mm x 100mm) in green
one natural-colored

Required material Candle wick

beeswax leftovers in different colors for decorations
piece of paper for the jig

Required material Santa Candle:

One sheet of beeswax (215mm x 100mm) in red
one natural-coloredsheet of beeswax
(215mm x 100mm) in red
one natural-colored

Trotec laser used:

Speedy 100, 60 Watts
Speedy 300, 80 Watts
cutting table

Step by Step

Step 1: Design

First open the template at the bottom of this page (provided in both CorelDraw and pdf formats). Import the design into Job Control to process the job.

Step 2: Laser Processing

Cutting the body of the candles
Place the beeswax sheets on the jig. Create the bodies of the candles using the laser cutter to cut the beeswax diagonally and/or straight.

Cutting ornaments
Include decorative designs such as stars, sockings and snowmen to lasercut. Because the wax is sticky, the sides of cuts easily re-adhere to one another, so make sure to remove your ornaments from the surrounding beeswax sheets immediately after cutting them.

Step 3: Parameter Settings

Using a Speedy 100

Cutting: Power 20%, Speed 2.5%, Frequency 1,000Hz, Pass 3, Air Assist ON

Using a Speedy 300

Cutting: Power 30%, Speed 0.5%, Frequency 1,000Hz, Pass 1, Air Assist ON

Step 4: Sheet Rolling

Christmas tree
Warm the cut body of the Christmas tree with your hands or a dryer.Then overlay the green wax with the yellow (or cream-colored) wax as shown in the photograph. Next place the candle wick along the edge where you will start rolling, and gently roll the sheets together by hand.

Santa
As shown in the photo, lay out the red and white sheets so they are touching. Then place the candle wick along the edge where you will start rolling. Gently roll the sheets together by hand, making sure that the red and white sheets do not seperate from each other. Roll another layer of red over the top of the Santa candle you have just created to make Santa’s clothes, and be sure to leave a bit of white exposed for his face.

Step 5: Decorating with Ornaments

Take two of the star shapes that have been cut out and warm them in your hands. Then apply them to the tip of the Christmas tree and sandwich the wick.
For small details such as eyes, roll pieces of leftover wax into small balls and apply them to the body of the candles using toothpicks. These parts should be sticky enough without having to use adhesives.

Warm the small wax pieces up with your hands and then push them firmly so that they stick to the body of the candles. The body of these decorations is comprised of two layers. You can also make plain candles by placing a wick between these layers and then pressing them together. You can also sandwich a toothpick at the case of the layers to make stick candles.

Step 6: Hints

When cutting the body of the candles, we recommend making a paper jig to use when you laser cut the wax.
Because the beeswax is naturally sticky, be sure to remove the designed ornaments quickly. Edges that are cut quickly harden as time passes. If the sides of the lines that have been cut are given an opportunity to re-adhere to one another, it becomes difficult to remove the ornaments from the surrounding beeswax sheets.
We do not recommend etailed designs with sharp corners and lettering because they are very difficult to remove from surrounding beeswax sheets.
The process of rolling and having candle layers stick together can be very difficult in low temperature environments. For better results, work in warm locations within 15℃ to 25℃ room temperature for the laser.
Tools such as scissors, rulers, cutting mats, toothpicks and blow dryers can be handy when making candles.