Candle Jars Using the Three R's

I'm back with another reduce, reuse, recycle project. These are some of my favorite projects as I hate to waste. While I'm by no means a poster child for any environmental organization, the thought of the mounds and mounds of trash in this world makes me nauseous; therefore I try my best to do my part.

Does anyone else hate to throw out a perfectly good jar? Especially one with a lid? I cringed every time I burned a pricey candle down to the wick and then there seemed to be nothing left to do but toss it in the trash. Along came my Cricut and now previous items fated for the trash can be transformed to treasure. Okay, well maybe not treasure but definitely something that can be reused in a practical fashion!

So let's get to the project. You will need:

• A candle in a glass jar that has been burned to the wick with the lid (hopefully you kept this!)

• Liquid dish soap (and possibly some Goo Gone if you have really sticky labels)

• Butter knife

• Adhesive vinyl

• Transfer tape

• Rubbing alcohol

Put the candle in the freezer for at least an hour. (I typically throw mine in whenever they burn down and then it's ready to go when I can get started on the project.) By freezing the wax, it makes it easy to break up and remove the remaining bits.

Once the wax is frozen, remove the candle from the freezer. I use the butter knife to gently crack the wax. When you have cracked the wax you can pull out the big pieces.

You will still have some residue on the inside. I use the liquid dish soap and a scrubber under warm water to remove the rest of the residue. Then I remove the labels. You may need to soak the jar in warm water if the labels are being stubborn.

And voila, you have a clean jar ready for it's next adventure! It's so quick and easy. Now the fun begins. There are so many ways to repurpose the jar--as another candle holder, as packaging for a gift, as a mini terrarium, etc.

My most recent project with a couple of these jars was making cotton ball and swab holders for our guest bathroom. In Cricut Design Space, I searched images for a label and chose this label which is Packaging Label Base #M12453FD7.

After inserting the label on the canvas, I added the text and changed the font to Lucida Calligraphy. To manipulate the spacing, ungroup the words, space them accordingly and then group them back. Once the text is the way you want it, weld the text. Center on the label, select both the label and the text and click slice. The sliced result with the text cut out of the label is the one you want to keep. It will look like this:

Now load your adhesive vinyl into the Cricut, select Make It, choose vinyl as your material and cut the label. Once cut, weed the label and apply the transfer tape to the label. Burnish the transfer tape and label with a scraper.

Clean the outside of the jar with rubbing alcohol to remove any fingerprints or debris. Apply the label, burnish, then remove the transfer tape.

And there you have it! Add the products to the jars and not only do you have a pretty way to display the toiletries, the lingering smell of the candle from the lids is a nice bonus when you open the jar.

What ideas can you come up with for these candle jars? I'm sure to have plenty more jars on my hands in the future!