Coffee Candle Aftermath

When Cameron and I go grocery shopping together he loves meandering through the coffee aisle so he can take a big whiff...I hurry past as fast as I can so I don't catch a whiff. It seems like coffee is one of those scents you either love or you don't. If you do love l'odeur du café (because translating anything into French and putting it in italics makes it fancy)...you'll love this idea. 

The Original Pin

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v499/jengrantmorris/Inspiration%20pics/?action=view&current=Hurricanelamp001.jpg 

A vanilla candle in a vase of coffee beans. While I think pinto beans smell better than coffee beans...I can see how this would smell heavenly to some. I do have to be fair, the vanilla combined with the coffee wouldn't be as bad to me as straight coffee beans...in fact it might be tolerable. Cameron would love the coffee part...but he's not a vanilla fan. So this pin would be doomed in our house. 

Candice saw the pin and decided it was perfect for her and set it all up. Aromatic heaven.  All seemed well, until...

The Pinstrosity

"The wax made a mess of the coffee beans and then cracked the glass. Fail. It smelled good for a minute."

The aftermath is rarely shown in these pretty magazine photos. But then, who would buy a magazine of aftermath photos? Well...I guess in a way you would as your are here at an aftermath blog. But...if all we saw were the aftermath photos I'm sure DIY wouldn't be as big of a phenomenon. 

When you put pretty candles in bowls/jars/plates/vases of beans or other items you rarely think about what happens when you light the candle and it starts melting. I learned this last year the hard way. 

I set up my pretty little autumn decorations, with the candles in the dish of candy (which very quickly disappeared, so we poured in kernels of corn). 

http://madebymarquette.blogspot.com/2011/09/autumn-candles.html

All went well until we burned the candles and ended up with a dish of waxed kernels, much like Candice's jar of waxed coffee beans...only my dish didn't break. 

So...the aftermath may not be so pretty, but while the candle is lit and relatively un-melted, it's rather nice. 

The jar breaking is a little unusual, but I assume it is from the candle shifting as it melted and overheating the glass. There was probably already some small air bubble or fracture that couldn't handle the extra heat.