I love candles, especially the expensive scented kind. My family never has to wonder what to give me at gift giving time - a Yankee Candle always fills the bill. But at $21.00 for a 14.5 ounce jar, I am not going to buy myself one. And even thrift store candles have gone up - two bucks for a dusty used candle!  What are they thinking!

So, I stretch my candles by saving the wax left over when the wick has run out. It's simple to create a new candle with the old wax.

The wax in jar candles is usually pretty soft, so I mix in hard candle stubs. Just make sure the colors will mix well. If you mix opposite colors, you could wind up with brown or some murky, unattractive mess.  Brown blends well with orange and red. Greens and blues go well together. Yellow and orange work well. And yellow and pink or orange and pink will produce a nice peach tint. Of course, white will just lighten up the other colors you might use.

For this batch, I used brown, yellow, red, and orange. Both the brown and orange were spicy scents. The yellow was a very strong ginger scent and the red was odorless. The brown was was very soft, a second time around Yankee Candle.

Don't mix scents that might not match. You can produce a wonderful new aromatic mixture if you blend similar scents or scents that naturally go together. The Yankee Candles are so strongly scented that their aroma will probably predominate.

Certain scents have special attributes used to create a mood. The concept of using scent to relax or energize is called aroma-therapy.

• Buy a wick and metal wick anchors at a craft store or online. They are pretty cheap and will last a long time.

• Find a nice, study thick glass. Jelly jars work well as they can take the heat.

• Remove all paper, old wicking, and all other debris from the candle. Break into pieces.

• Melt the wax slowly in a double boiler on low heat.

• Never melt wax over direct heat. My sister did this and scared the heck out of herself by producing a fireball!. Which made a very interesting design on the ceiling.

• Prime the wick by dipping into melted wax. Let it harden before inserting into candle glass. A primed wick will burn evenly.

• Feed some of the wick through the hole in the center of the anchor. Keep the wicking longer than yo need. You can cut It off later.

• Drip a small bit of wax into the glass jar. When the little blob sets, press the metal anchor into the wax pointy side down. Smash it so the metal points grasp the wick
  

• Gently pour melted wax int the jar, reserving some of the wax.

• Make sure the wick is straight. Roll it around a pencil and set the pencil on the top edge of the glass to keep the wick straight.

• As the wax sets up , a depression will appear around the wick. fill it in with the reserved wax. You will probably have to melt it again.

• When the candle has set up, unroll the wick from around the pencil and trim to about 1/4 of an inch.

• Clean up - never pour excess melted wax down the drain. If you have enough left over, let it harden and save it for the next candle. Clean bowl by repeatedly filling it with boiing water. 
• Enjoy!