This past spring semester, the daughter’s final project for her sculpture, mold-making, and casting class involved ten candles. Although the project had to include making molds and casting, it was otherwise open-ended, so one could use whatever material they wanted. It didn’t have to have a theme, but it should be a cohesive project, not random.
She decided on the topic for this project: her parents’ 25th wedding anniversary. In each piece was a bit of wax from our wedding candle. the project took about 30 hours.
Candle #1: a wedding cake to represent the marriage in 1999. The scent was vanilla, sugar cane, and almond.
Candle #2 represents my wife’s and my honeymoon in Barbados in 1999. The scent was rum cake. Why? Because our daughter asked us to give her specifics. Rum cake was one of the most tangible objects we remember from that period; it was delicious, and we brought some back home.
Candle #3 is a standard house because we bought our home together in 2000. (My wife had purchased a house earlier, and we lived there for a year, but it wasn’t OURS.) The scent was coconut, citrus, and amber.
Candle #4 is the steeple from our current church, which we started attending in 2000. The scent is golden apple and Honey Drizzle.
Candle #5 is three candles tied together, representing the three of us. The candles are three different shades of green in honor of our surname. The scent is vanilla, buttercream, and marshmallow, which she feels smells like a newborn.
Candle #6 is an adenoid. The daughter had an adenoidectomy at the age of two and a half, which was very traumatic for her parents. That candle is unscented because the procedure involved her nose.
Felines
Candle #7 is the cat Midnight, who we got in 2013. The scent was sandalwood and clove, which smelled like fresh kitty litter. At this point in his life, Midnight was always covered in kitty litter, so she thought it was very fitting for him.
Candle #8 is the cat Stormy, who we got later in 2013. The scent is called Warm and Welcome. Both cat candles use the same mold by casting them with different colored crayon waxes. Neither of them came out exactly how she envisioned. Midnight was too gray, and Stormy needed stripes, so she painted them, giving each more texture.
Candle #9 is the daughter graduating from high school and attending college. The scent is warm spring sunshine. The wick from our wedding candle was used as the tassel.
Candle #10 commemorates my wife and my 25th-anniversary trip to Chautauqua Institution. This is the CHQ tower; she made it before we went. The scent is sparkling sugared berries.
Unfortunately, the box of candles was lost when she moved back home at the end of the semester. Nevertheless, it was a wonderfully inventive effort. I LOVE these SO much.