Review of Get Crafty Start Candle Making Kit by Kirstie Allsopp *

We were sent this candle making kit by Hobby Craft which has been designed by Kirstie Allsopp to review on our blog.  You may have seen Kirstie’s program dedicated to handmade items and crafts on TV. She has been inspired by her love for craft and experience to create her own candle making kit for her fans and followers.  Kirstie, born into British Aristocracy in the 70’s originally started her television career on Location, Location, Location a property program that has been extremely successful over the years. However, in 2009 she bought along with her friend an old house in Devon and began to renovate it, which developed into another TV series Kirstie’s “homemade home”, which then introduced us to her love of craft and all things homemade. She then went onto to do several programs on craft and making things to decorate your home, which has now lead her to make a selection of craft gifts that are available to buy in Hobby Craft.

This simple candle making kit contains everything you need in order to make a beautiful candle. The kit includes wax pellets, two moulds, vanilla fragrance, unwaxed cotton wick, mould sealer, wick bars and wooden stirrers. The kit is specially made for those who are beginners and have no experience at candle making at all. The kit contains ideas, hints and tips, as well as a full set of instructions to get you started.   There two pillar moulds included in the kit are not the same height, hence allowing you to create different variety of candles. You can even use your own moulds to experiment with the design of the candles if you want.

What is included in the candle making kit?

The Pros are that it is easy to make the candles as the moulds are of good quality and the kit provided has sufficient quantity of wax so you can make a considerable amount of candles (approximately 8 in total). The kit can be done by an older child under supervision, I would recommend 11+, we decided not to do it with my 9 year-old as we were worried that she might not listen to instructions or understand the dangers of the hot wax.

The Cons are, that the wax was very hot so you need to be very careful if you are doing this with children.  We would have also preferred if there were additional colours included in the kit to colour the candles as they were quite plain looking. At one point we feel that it would have been better if the Instructions has been updated with more information such as the size of jug/jar to be used, number of candles which can be made with the kit etc. The instructions were quite basic and perhaps might be hard for someone who is not very good at crafts. Also, the stirrers included in the kit were too small hence we had to look for another wooden object to help stir the candle mixture properly.

All that being said the kit would be a lovely gift for someone or even for yourself if you are a lover of crafts and love trying out new crafts.  This activity would easily fill your afternoon up and you would have some lovely scented candles for the house at the end of it. We lit the candles and they were lovely and not overly scented, which is good if you don’t like anything too strong, I suppose you could add more scents in to create a stronger scent if that is what you prefer.

The Get Crafty Candle Making Kit costs £20 but can be purchased from Hobby Craft for £16 here as it is on offer at the moment.