Spooky Skeleton Bath Candles

If you're part of any craft boards, or if you have been watching Halloween craft reels/videos on TikTok, you have probably seen the super cute candles. When they are all put together, they complete a spooky skeleton in the bathtub....who can resist? I found some adorable Halloween bowls at HomeGoods that seemed like the perfect size, and I could not resist jumping on the bandwagon! I am very happy with the way that the candles turned out, but I had forgotten what a process it is to make candles!

For supplies I used:

Soy wax, wicks, superglue, pouring pot, saucepan, bamboo stick, popsicle sticks, essential oils (I found super cute fall scents at TJ Maxx), plastic skeletons (Dollar Tree), and bowls (HomeGoods).

I had ordered all of my candle making supplies (wicks, pouring pot, wax) separately on Amazon. However, now they have a nifty beginner package which may be perfect! The benefit of getting the package would getting everything that you need to get started (to include handy dandy wick holders). You will see later that to keep the wicks straight, I had drilled holes in popsicle sticks. When you pour in hot wax, the wax on the wicks bend and they become flexible, tip. If you purchase the package from Amazon, it comes with 3 hole wick holders. Having the wick holders will save you time, and cut down on having to use the drill ;)

My first go at candles, I did not anchor the wicks down. As soon as I poured the hot wax, they began to float. This time I thought I was smarter than the average bear to super glue them to the bottom of the bowl prior to pouring the hot wax. PS this made quite a mess! I was forever picking at the superglue stuck to my fingers :P Pro tip, I had seen a video later, in which they used tweezers to place the wick into the superglue. Seems to be a cleaner option, I will have to keep that in mind for the next time that I make candles ;)

To prep, I cut up my skeletons (rather than submerge the whole thing in the wax). I cut just a little below the pieces that you see (so right below the torso, and right at the knee). I set the skeletons aside. Next, I filled a saucepan with water and added my soy wax in the pour pot to melt. The flakes really melt down, so as they turned to liquid, I just added more. I repeated this until the pour pot was full. To stir the wax, I just used a bamboo skewer (rather than get a spoon all dirty). It worked great. While the wax melted, I super glued the wicks to the bowl.

After the wax had melted, I combined the essential oil and wax in the pouring pot. There was not precise measuring for this. I remembered last time I had not used enough, so this time I used a bunch. Just what smelled good :) For these three bowls, I had dumped a full vial. After this project, I had seen some videos on making candles. I saw that most people use scented oils made for candles.

I filled the bowls about 2/3 of the way with wax. You can see that the hot wax melts the wax on the wick, and they bend to the side. To make sure they stay upright through the middle, I had drilled holes in popsicle to feed the wick through. My popsicle sticks were not long enough for the width of my bowls, so I had to improvise ;) I added two extra popsicle sticks to each bowl to be a foundation for the stick in the middle. I told you this was going to be quite the process!!!

When the wax had cooled a bit (starts to look solid) I just smooshed in my skeleton pieces :) Once the candles were completely cooled and solid, I removed the popsicle sticks and clipped the wick to a shorter length. Both times that I have worked with the soy wax, they appear wrinkled and have "potholes" once they have cooled all the way. I found that using a heat source (I used an embellishment tool), you can heat the wax a little bit, and it will dry smooth :) I love the way these turned out! I really don't think that the pictures do them justice <3

For a list of candle supplies that I used or inspired by this activity, please visit my Amazon Storefront here.

If you are interested in more crafting inspiration or project ideas, check out my other pages on this blog! Also, you can check out more ideas and video of this process on my Facebook and TikTok pages. Please give me a like and a follow! Thanks :)