As I was walking by the dumpsters one night, y'know like any common person, I saw this basket of stuff off to the side. Why didn't I take the basket too?? I was clearly too distractedly excited about finding the two candles inside. You can see there were two, one blue, one white.
Here are the two candles in my sink, waiting to be cleaned out.
I'm not a candle person to begin with, and those things smelled STRONG. Like crazy perfume strong, no way was I going to keep them around. I couldn't wait to get the wax out and start the transformation into pretty glass cachepots.
Using a flat screwdriver I was able to break the wax into a few sections and then just flip it out. It was a little trickier in the blue glass jar because the lip was narrower than the base.After getting the visible wax out I ran the glass through the dishwasher to try to remove the smell and soften up the glue that was attaching the wick to the base. Getting the wick removed from the bottom took a few minutes because it was hard to get a grip on it with the waxy covering that remained. Patience prevailed in the end.
You can see I accidentally scraped the paint in a few places, but its not obvious if you are looking at it from the outside, only when light is shining through from the outside.
I had another Haworthia succulent that needed a new home, so I cut down a coffee cup to match the height of the blue glass and poked a few holes in the bottom for drainage.
It was just that simple! Voila, a fancy free cachepot saved from the trash pile.
To recap, here are the DIY tutorial steps to make a cachepot from an old candle:
1. find old candle
2. using a flat screwdriver carefully poke through the wax down to the glass and cut the wax up into pieces.
3. Using the screwdriver as a lever, lift out the wax pieces and discard (unless you can think of a great way to reuse candle wax, maybe to wax a sticky drawer slide?)
4. If the wick is glue to the base of the candle try to pry it up with the screwdriver, it may take a few minutes of prying and gently pulling on the wick with your fingers. Keep a paper towel around to wipe off the wax as needed.
5. After you have removed all the wax, wash the glass jar
6. Insert new plant, either directly into glass or via a smaller planter set inside.
Happy freestyling and indoor gardening!