Waxing about Bees Wax

 Some times I get the strangest gifts.  A couple of months ago I bumped into a friend at the Farmers Market.  My friend,  said he had some bees wax he thought I might be crafty enough to do something with it.  Not knowing anything about bees wax really other than I love the smell of it,  I said sure why not!  It's funny how things work out.  Anyway,  I carted in two of the five buckets of bees wax I had been given and I melted the wax down slowly.  It took a long time and you need to do it in a double boiler so you don't burn the wax.  My wax was super dark and I thought I had heated it too high but then I discoverd that once it started to cool it was that beautiful golden color.

 So we dipped tiny pinecones in the bees wax and used super fine glitter  to embellish the pine cones.   They are so beautiful.

We were super careful with the hot wax.  It was tricky to use in that it does start to cool down very quickly.

I think if I were to do this again I would set up a hot water bath in the crock pot so the wax never got a change to cool down.  After I had about five or six children dip pine cones I had to reheat the wax up.

 So this morning as I was walking to work I picked up a tree branch on Kline Street and carried it to the school.  Such funny looks a got!  But I just couldn't leave the branch as it was so perfect and beautiful.  I wasn't sure what I would do with it but I knew I needed it.  It really is funny how things come together.  I had no idea that I was going to use that branch today to hold all those beautiful pine cones.

Bees wax as I was melting it

before I started to melt it

I started to strain the wax in this cheese cloth but I soon abandoned that as it became really difficult and I knew we were not pouring it into moulds so it was ok that I had bit of wood in it.  For me the simpler the better.   Also, I used bought an old pot from the thrift store to use for this project.  you wouldn't want to use a good one.