{"id":54064,"date":"2015-02-04T00:09:08","date_gmt":"2015-02-04T08:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=54064"},"modified":"2015-02-04T00:09:08","modified_gmt":"2015-02-04T08:09:08","slug":"candlemaking-merit-badge-beginner-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/54064","title":{"rendered":"Candlemaking Merit Badge, Beginner Level"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<span style=\"color: #800080;\">The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.farmgirlsisterhood.org\/\">Sisterhood Merit Badge program<\/a>,<span style=\"color: #800080;\"> now with\u00a06,188 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u20148,837 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div><span style=\"color: #339966;\">Wondering who I am? I\u2019m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/10477\">former life<\/a> \u2026<b>\u00a0<\/b><b>\u00a0<\/b><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/div>\n<p>For this week\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.farmgirlsisterhood.org\/badges-mie-candlemaking.asp\">Make It Easy\/Candlemaking Beginning Level Merit Badge<\/a>, I burned my collection of store-bought candles down to the nubbins. Nubs? Stubs? Well, no matter; the point is, waste not, want not, so although I don\u2019t intend to purchase a lot of chemical-laden candles anymore, I still wanted to use up the old stuff (and recycle the containers, of course &#8230; wink, wink, nudge, nudge). With the rather confusing and somewhat headache-inducing aroma of Peach-Gardenia-Pine-Maple-Cotton lingering throughout my living room, I settled down for <span style=\"text-decoration: line-through;\">a long winter\u2019s nap <\/span>some serious researching into the lost art of candlemaking. Three pieces of knowledge were needed for Yours Truly to earn this Beginning Level Badge and I was hot to trot. I was also hot because of all the smoke, but that\u2019s probably a coincidence.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/candles2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image aligncenter size-full wp-image-54079\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/candles2.jpg\" alt=\"candles2\" width=\"360\" height=\"235\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What kind of wax should I use (or maybe even more importantly, <em>not<\/em> use)? It turns out, in my digging for the truth, that there are several options. Among the most popular: soy-based, paraffin blend, beeswax, vegetable, and coconut. Now it doesn\u2019t take an Expert Level badge earner to be a little wary of the paraffin wax. (Can I get an amen, sisters?) Paraffin emits all sorts of chemical-laced odors, and that\u2019s not surprising, given that it\u2019s basically a compound of mineral (crude) oil. And if I\u2019m gonna burn my house down while attempting to mask the smell of my jogging shoes, I want it to be organic smoke, right? Ha ha, just a little candle humor there.<\/li>\n<li>What kind of smelly good stuff should I use? Behind Door #1 we have: essential oils. These come in just about every scent your proboscis can imagine, and if you can\u2019t find the one you\u2019re looking for, you can mix and match. They are a little on the spendy side though, so unless you are, say, making two dozen tea lights and you don\u2019t care that they\u2019re all French Vanilla, you can go for Door #2: open up your pantry\/backdoor\/garden gate. Lavender \u2026 pine needles \u2026 coffee beans \u2026 cinnamon. But take it from me, not all together in one candle. Lilac Pancakes are just weird. Voice of experience here.<\/li>\n<li>What kind of coloring should I use? Those leftover tabs of dye from last Easter\u2019s egg debacle? Food coloring? Organic food coloring? Those just might be the bee\u2019s knees (minus the Easter-egg dye), but you know what they\u2019ve been using to dye candles for centuries? Things like paprika, comfrey, beets, tea, rosehip powder, lavender, and spirulina powder. Well, unless you\u2019re looking for a neon green, glow-in-the-dark, totally unnatural color, of course. But if you are, you probably wouldn\u2019t be reading this, would you, my little all-natural beauties?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/candles1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image aligncenter size-full wp-image-54080\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/candles1.jpg\" alt=\"candles1\" width=\"360\" height=\"247\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Armed to the teeth (or rather nose) with my education, I was all set (and uber-excited) to put my information into motion. And my motion into a potion. And my potion into \u2026 lotion? Nah, that\u2019s a different badge. Candlemaking Beginner Level Badge: check! Candlemaking Intermediate Level Badge: coming right up \u2026\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with\u00a06,188 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u20148,837 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ\u00a0 Wondering who &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/54064\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/54064\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gladsome_sisters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}