Can a person ever learn enough? The fascinating part is that there is always something new to learn and explore. I was doing a good job cleaning my house and just “researching” on the computer in the evenings…darn pinterest! Well a pin about water marbling your nails caught my eye and next thing you know I had all my nail stuff out and was playing.
Not bad if I do say so myself!
Then I noticed my beeswax was starting to mold so I thought I better process it right away. (A friend has bees and the best tasting honey ever! They give me the wax.) I started with this -
And some really grungy combs -
And am now in processing mode. I found a couple helpful articles that I’ll share if this turns out – lol! Basically you boil the comb in water with low heat and let it cool. The bee legs and other debris settles to the bottom and the wax rises to the top. It shrinks when it cools so it’s easy to lift out of the pan and then throw the water out the window. Do this a few times until your wax is clean. I’ve also been experimenting with boiling the wax in a nylon to strain it the first time but I didn’t like how much was stayed caked to the nylon…this stuff is precious! I have some projects planned to do after I have clean wax. See…always something to learn! Again I get “I don’t have time to do any of that…” well, I’ve decided I don’t have the time either…but I do have tremendous DRIVE to do this. And DRIVE trumps time. Something else has to give…like my messy basement. (Upstairs is done) I just won’t invite anyone to the basement any time soon. lol. And, while the wax is cooking I’m going to be cleaning my kitchen…gotta keep an eye on the wax anyways. So I’m crafting AND cleaning!
Happy Crafting!!
4 comments:
Wait... let me understand this... boiling with low heat? So does the comb shlump into a waxy ball or does it actually hold its shape? I know you can buy sheets of what looks like perfectly formed honeycomb. Perhaps it's been remolded? Questions, questions! Thanks Kim.
Lol, goodquestion! You have to use medium heat to bring it to a slow boil. Beeswax will ignite around 150 degrees, I err on the side of caution. It doesn't hold its shape, it looks like a NASTY soup lol. I just processed an entire kettle and only got a tiny bit of wax, and the kettle before that had lots of wax...I haven't figured out why yet...it's weird. Different parts of the comb I suppose. The picture in the post of the comb gave me the most wax. I'll keep you posted. Oh, also, the lovely sheets you can buy are certainly reformed to look so nice.
I can't wait to hear how it all turns out.
Got Mike on his way today. It was hard, so very hard. I sat in the car and sobbed and hugged Mike's jacket. He arrived safetly and is not impressed with flying.
Hope you have a great weekend. Hey, love the fingernails too.
Blessings!
Ahh, now I understand, thanks. That's so interesting about different parts of the comb. Like Julie, I look forward to updates.
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