Winter is the time that I make use of all the beeswax that I collected during the summer. I melted and cleaned it right after harvesting in August and it is ready to be made into something creative and useful. To see how I clean the raw beeswax, go to Beeswax-Honeybee Gift.
My blocks of beeswax
When I was putting away my Christmas stuff, I noticed that my cookie cutters were still out so I decided to use them for inspiration. I even had a bee skep shaped one!
The best way to melt your beeswax is in a dedicated crock pot. If you don’t have this luxury, use an old tin can inside of a saucepan of water on your stove top. I had about four pounds of beeswax to work with and ultimately only used about half of that for nine sachets. I added 2 tablespoons of lavender oil to the wax for fragrance. Use more if you want the scent to last and linger.
Set out your cookie cutters on top of parchment paper on a cookie sheet and drop in some dried flowers for color
Beeswax Sachet Recipe
1. Set out cookie cutters on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. If you don’t have cookies cutters, you can use small pastry molds instead.
2. Add pieces of fragrant dried flowers to the bottom of your cutters to add color and fragrance. Mine were pressed flat in my dried flower press over the summer.
Dried flowers and the essential oil needed for fragrance
3. Add 1 to 2 tablespoons of essential oil (I used lavender) to the melted wax and swirl in.
If you use a crock pot, protect your work surface with paper for wax spills
4. Spoon melted wax, using an old plastic measuring cup, into the cookie cutters on parchment paper, letting the first layer of wax solidify before adding more. Wax will bleed out from the edges of the cutters onto the parchment. That excess can be gathered up later and returned to your crock pot for reusing.
The wax will bleed out from the cookie cutters at first and then solidify
5. Pour another layer of wax into the molds and drop in more dried flower pieces. I made my sachets about 1/2 inch thick.
6. While still soft, insert some dowels into the top of the shapes for hangers or leave them whole.
7. Place in the freezer until hard for several hours. Remove the cutters when firm and cold.
8. Take out dowels and insert hangers ( I used raffia) if desired. The dowels can be tricky to remove, but I just continue to rock them back and forth in the hole until they release.
9. To clean any excess wax on the cookie cutters, boil them in water in a large pot.
Place in freezer to harden
The whole house was very fragrant when I made these and the smell lingers after hanging them in your closet or placing in drawers with linens or lingerie.
For more ideas on beeswax projects, go to Beeswax Citrus Soap and Lavender Honey-Scented Body Butter.
Beeswax soap
5 Comments
Don’t have a bee hive , but would love to do the projects, any suggestions?
Of course! Use regular parrifin wax that you buy at a grocery store or craft store. The color will be white and you can add dyes to color it if you want. But I think they would be pretty just white. Also, if you have any old candle stubs at home, melt them down (as long as they are one color). You don’t want to mix different colors together. You can buy beeswax on line and make them with that too if you like that look.
Have you ever tried to use a small drill bit to drill a hole for the hanger?
No, but I think it would work fine. Let me know if you try!
We tried this, they had no smell, added more flowers and essential oil and still no fragrance. My husband put one in the car and no smell. What activates the fragrance?