Floating Candle Ideas

Floating candles make a great party decorating idea, they can be used in both indoor and outdoor settings, in water features or simply in glassware such as bowls and vases. Floating candles are also quick and easy to make. You can make them easily from scratch or you can very quickly alter a tea light candle into a floating candle.

Floating candles are one of the quickest and easiest candles to create from home. Floating candles are also fantastic from a safety perspective. Fundamentally, a candle will float when its base is smaller than its top and if its wick doesn't go completely through the candle.

There are plenty of floating candle molds available at craft stores and online at places like ebay.com and amazon.com. However, you do not have to buy molds made especially for candle making. You can use cupcake molds and even ice cube molds. These days silicone cup cake and ice molds are available in an assortment of shapes and sizes. Generally, at holiday times you come across novelty silicone trays, e.g. I saw skulls and brains at Halloween and hearts and flowers at Valentine’s Day. These make fantastic novelty floating candles. If you are planning to use your floating candles in an outdoors setting you will need to look for ones where the wick is recessed allowing it some defense against breezes.

If you make candles at home and find they do not float for very  long it may be because you have thread the wick completely through the candle. If you have pierced the base of the candle, water will manage to get through to the wick and the wick will stop burning.

When I am making floating candles for table centerpieces I don’t tend to scent them. If they are room decorations or used in an outdoor setting adding a candle scent or essential oil is a great idea, but if people will be sitting close to them in a dining setting I leave them un-scented. At a dinner party I feel it should be the fragrance of the food, not the decoration that dominates.

Centerpieces using floating candles

If you make candles at home you will find it easy to make stunning centerpieces using floating candles. Table centerpieces are generally created in large bowls, glass containers or flower vases.

A really easy centerpiece involves using a big bowl of water filled with a variety of floating candles. If there is a contrast in colors between candles and the bowl the effects is a lot more impressive. Alternatively keep the candles white and color the water using a couple of drops of food coloring. Take care when using food coloring though as it will stain if spilled.

If you have numerous thin vases of various heights you can also make a really effective display with floating candles. Even if you have very similar sized vases you can still create a fantastic effect simply by creating levels of water within the glasses. Again different colored candles can certainly make this display better.

One of the real delights whenever you make candles at home is able to alter your products to match the topic of the event. This could be as easy as the color of wax you choose. If you dinner party has a theme then extend it to your candle decorations. Sometimes I will choose my candle colors to match the flowers or the tableware or even the color of the dessert. If you simply have white candles you can still incorporate your color theme in a couple of ways.

1.       Submerge a string of beads of the theme color inside the bowl and float your candles on top. At Christmas this particular notion may very well be extended to placing colored baubles in the dish. You can also use small river pebbles or floristry rocks to complete the look of your display.

2.       Submerge plants in dish. Flowers can be real or synthetic; if you find they have a tendency to float you can weigh them down. I have used both drape weights and fishing weights to keep the flowers submerged.

3.       As already mentioned, the simplest method is to use a couple of drops of food coloring in your water and then float your white candles on top.

Flower shaped floating candles look really effective in a pool or on a pond. Floating candles may add that perfect final touch for a backyard party or family get together. If making use of the candles in a pool you will likely wish to weight the candles to prevent them moving around the pool. I recommend using lengths of fishing line together with a fishing weight or even a balloon containing sand to keep the candles from constantly drifting across the pool.

Lastly, if you haven't had time to make any floating candles you can easily alter some tea light candles to ensure they float. If you make candles from home you probably have some tea light candles around. If you, remove the tea light from its metal holder and turn it upside down you will see a metal sustainer on the base of the candle. In order to make sure water doesn't get to your wick you will have to cover the base, including the sustainer, with melted wax. Again, assuming you're making candles from home you'll have few candles put away, and can easily light one of them and drip the melted wax over the base of the tea light. Once the sustainer is covered, water will not penetrate the wick and the tea light will float.

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