Busy as a Bee(swax)

Making blackened beeswax ornaments is not a difficult process, but it is complicated and takes time.  

Time to heat the beeswax (using pelleted beeswax instead of block beeswax speeds up the melting process),

time to measure, cut, and tie the strings for the hangers,

 and time to prepare the molds for the hot beeswax. 

Once that's all done, the actual process proceeds quickly.

I pour a batch, replenish the pellets in the double boiler and begin melting those, prep some new molds, and then pop the just-poured batch of ornaments out of their molds and dust them with cinnamon.

I set them onto paper plates for cooling, and by the time all that is done, the next batch of beeswax is fully melted and ready to be poured. I repeat this process over and over until I am satisfied I have made enough for the next event.

Once in a while I do run into a problem. Long molds can be tricky - the ornaments sometimes break when I am removing them from their molds.

And since I unmold the ornaments over a pan of cinnamon, then their wax is contaminated and cannot be reused. (I often pour ornaments and things that I do not plan to blacken, so my wax has to remain pure and not have cinnamon or other impurities in it.)

These beeswax hearts are an example of something that I do not blacken. Used for waxing thread by sewists, you sure don't want cinnamon on them.

I got some new molds for Christmas that I had been looking forward to using.

The Madonna and Child is beautiful! 

And this unusual design is really nice, too. (I'm not sure what it is, but I like it!)

Soon the plates of cooling ornaments begin stacking up on my counters.

Plates one and two.

Plates three and four.

Plates five and six.

Plates seven and eight.

The unmolded sewing cakes.

After four hours, I stopped. My body was reminding me that I am still healing and enough was enough. I'd made fifty ornaments and with what I still had in my inventory, that should be enough for Kalamazoo.

I turned off the hot plate, laid down on the couch (Pepper cuddled against my legs), and fell asleep for an hour!

The ornaments aren't done yet, though. Today I will put several coats of sealer on them, let that dry overnight tonight, and then I will pack them up tomorrow in preparation for KZoo.

I also have to put the kitchen to rights - wiping down all the counters as the cinnamon often drifts when I dust the ornaments, washing and air drying the molds, and cleaning out the double boiler pot. (Always a messy job.) 

Tired as I was, we never did get to Dog N Suds. We ate leftovers and then I fell into bed early.

Still, I am pleased that, despite not even being two weeks post op from a very major surgery, I got so much done, more than I thought I would, and the next morning (now) I am feeling good. Clearly my body is healing and I am grateful.