Soy Candle Making Supplies - Wick to Wax

Soy candle making supplies have several advantages over other supplies, not the least of which is the light carbon footprint these supplies leave - and they do so at a smaller cost than my favorite "green" luminary: beeswax. Soy candle making supplies, like beeswax supplies, produce luminaries that burn cleanly, with little of the black soot given off by paraffin wax. Yet they cost much less.

Soy supplies yield other benefits, too, for the caring chandler. These supplies let you create lights that burn more slowly, lasting longer than other types of similar size. In fact, one six-inch soy pillar is likely to last thirty to fifty percent longer than a six-inch paraffin pillar.

Soy candle making supplies actually cost less, in the long run, than others. When brand new chandlers include in their cost calculations the number of hours their creations can be expected to burn, they are often surprised to find that soy gives them nearly twice as many hours of beauty and fragrance for their money. To put it another way, you get twice as many beautiful candles (in burn hours) from soy candle making supplies as you do from other types of wax supplies.

Wicks Can Be Eco-Friendly

The most beautiful and fragrant luminary will never pulse with life until it has a wick, of course. The wick is the heart of your candle. A wick turns that cold, hard, soy wax into a warm, beautifully pulsating light.

Since soy candle making supplies such as soft wax, bright dyes, and sweet fragrances can all be totally eco-friendly, an environmentally sensitive chandler will want to put eco-friendly wicks on his or her list of soy candle making supplies, too. You might want to look at the two types of wicking below:

· Cotton core wicking - is a good choice when using environment-conscious soy wax. Cotton core wicks produce a hot flame that reduces carbon buildup. Made of one hundred percent natural, renewable cotton fibers, these eco-friendly wicks use a rigid inner core to make them stand straight and remain straight.

· Hemp core wicking - will also enhance your soy candle making supplies. The one hundred percent hemp fiber forms a natural eco-friendly core that, like cotton, is rigid enough to hold the wick straight as your wax burns. The core itself is enclosed in unbleached one hundred percent cotton.

Wax Can Be Eco-friendly

Soy candle making supplies would be nothing without the soy wax that farmers derive from their soybean crops.

As the wick of your pillar or votive burns, it needs a constant supply of wax for fuel. Without wax, the wick would consume itself very quickly. The wick melts the soy wax into a liquid, which is carried to the flame. There, it is turned to vapor and burned away.

But why use soybeans? Aren't those the beans they use to make tofu and food for livestock?

True, soybeans are a food source for humans and animals, but they are also rich in oil, and that oil provides an inexpensive alternative to beeswax or other waxes. When processed, a sixty-pound bushel of soybeans will yield about eleven pounds of crude soybean oil

Between 1991 and 1992, the candle industry's Michael Richards developed soy wax to fill a growing demand for less expensive natural candles. Mr. Richards began with natural soybean wax. Into that wax, he blended partially hydrogenated soy oil, coconut oil, and palm oil. Later, Mr. Richards added a small amount of beeswax to create even more cost effective soy candle making supplies.

Softer than most other waxes, soy wax is usually used for pillars or container candles. It can be used for tapers, votives, and tea lights, but you will want to add a fair quantity of wax hardener to your list of soy candle making supplies if you want to make those.

List of Supplies

This list of soy candle making supplies will get you started. Follow good instructions and you should be able to make about 20 one-half-cup-size container chandelles.

· 5 lbs of soy wax

· 20 cotton-core or hemp-core wicks - 4" size

· 3 bottles of fragrance - 2 oz. size

· 3 bottles of dye, 1 each of red, blue, and yellow

· 20 glass or ceramic jars with lids - 4 oz. size

Soy candle making supplies such as those on our list are available from many online retailers - or visit your local craft and hobby stores. You will want to remember as you shop, though, that the higher the quality of your soy candle making supplies, the higher the quality of your finished luminaries. They will burn longer, burn more evenly, and emit far less soot. They will also fill your room with a more pleasant, longer lasting scent.

© 2009, Anna Hart. Anna Hart invites you to read more of her articles about soy candle making supplies at http://www.secretsofcandlemakingcrafts.com. Anna has posted articles on that site about other candle making crafts, too. If you want to learn secrets of getting great results with candle making wax, you won't want to miss her article on the subject.

Making Learning Fun

Autism is a disorder of the brain that is biological in function. It causes anywhere from mild to severe social impairment and an inability to function normally in society. However, there are ways to treat many of the cases of autism. Autistic children can learn and excel and if certain teaching methods are used, their progress can be nothing short of fantastic.

One of the most important things to realize in making learning fun for autistic children is the fact that they learn in different ways than children without autism. Autistic children generally have a disability in social skills. Sometimes this difficulty in communication involves language skills. However, there are a number of ways to make learning these important skills more than just a chore. By injecting fun into learning, it has been shown that autistic children learn at a faster pace. Actually, fun and learning work well for all types of children, but autistic children are special and require more tailored methods.

Children with autism seem to learn best when the instructional material is presented in visual form. In this case it might be worthwhile to try different educational programs via a computer. Using a computer is a fun way to learn. The majority of educational programs are highly visual. Many of the games available involve storylines, plots, and realistic human behaviors. Some of the skills autistic children can learn from carefully selected video games are language skills, reading and math skills, and social skills. Visual learning devices are highly effective and can be accompanied by various rewards to reinforce what is being learned. For instance, food and extended leisure activities can be used as rewards that will encourage the child to want to learn. In addition, the use of positive reinforcement will help develop a bond between student and teacher, and create a sense of trust that will help strengthen the learning environment.

Social stories are another way to make learning fun for children with autism. Since one of the aspects of autism is the inability to interact normally in a social situation, social stories can be utilized in a variety of different ways in order to model appropriate behavior. Autism education pioneer Carol Gray developed this approach in 1991. By using engaging stories, children with autism can learn appropriate and inappropriate responses to situations. The level of fun, of course, is up to the way social stories are used. Usually, the stories are tailored to the child. By modeling situations familiar to an autistic child, they can be better prepared to react in a socially appropriate to those same situations in the future. Social stories usually have three distinct ways of addressing a particular situation. The first describes who, what, where and why in relation to the situation. The second is a perspective sentence that illuminates how others react to the situation being discussed. Finally, the third sentence tries to model an appropriate response. Sometimes the use of social stories can be accompanied by music and pictures. In terms of making the process a bit more fun rewards can be used when a situation is properly addressed.

Children with autism require special education needs to address their social difficulties. It is really important to make these activities as much fun as possible so the student will stay motivated. It is not easy for an autistic child to change his or her response to various situations, so it is imperative that the activities be non-threatening and highly interesting. It has been demonstrated that over time the use of visual aids and social stories are two of the most effective ways to help autistic children overcome social situations they feel are threatening. To most of us, these situations are normal, everyday occurrences, but to children with autism they can sometimes be terrifying moments that they do not have the skills to deal with. These teaching methods, while entertaining and fun, can help children adapt and manage their perceptions of social interactions.

Rachel Evans also writes a FREE Autism Newsletter. You can grab your copy here: Free Autism Newsletter. For information about using autism social stories as a learning tool or for more on which autism toys.