Dinner Party Candle Timer

Keep to your party timeline without checking your phone or watch all the time! By decorating designs by intervals, you can easily see how much time is passing. You can decide when to put out the next course, pop some coffee on to brew for dessert, or just have a count down for how long you need to stay before you can duck away for a bit if you are a party introvert.

Candles, Matches, Candle Wax Pen, Toothpick, Candle Holder.

Trim the wick of one candle to 1/4 inch (just over 6mm). Place candle in candle holder and light and decide how long you want your time sections to be so you can time the burn rate. I went with 20 minutes. After the your designated time has passed, blow out the candle, allow to cool, and mark a line with the toothpick on any unlit candles. You will need to be sure your candles all match as different waxes or thicknesses of candles will change the burn rate. I then relit the candle and burned for another 20 minutes and repeated two more times, marking on the unburned candle as I went.

Once I had a few time marks, I estimated the rest of my candle to mark where I wanted my designs. My candle wasn't tapered so it was even. If you are using a tapered candle you should continue to burn and measure your candle to account for this.

Once I had my 20 minute lines, I used my candle pen wax to create a simple pattern. You can do a line, dots, leaves, and even change colors to indicate time passing. I used the toothpick to finesse some lines. I did also try a paint brush but I couldn't get it as precise as I wanted. If you don't like something, the wax pen does take some time to dry so just wipe off with a damp paper towel. The scratched time line will stay.

While this does add some wax to the candle, the wax pen I used burned so much faster than my beeswax candle that I don't think it effected the burn rate too much.

Make sure to let the wax fully dry and burn at your next dinner party or family function where you don't want to spend all your time checking the time! Yes this won't be as exact as an actual clock, but it can be a fun decorative way to keep the party flowing!