One of the changes we’ve made in our lives is to embrace handmade, especially handmade at home. Christmas just amplified this feeling this year, which was wonderful because I was the tiniest bit worried we would miss the commercial trappings of the holiday. Instead, we’ve been busy making, and so when my husband mentioned he was missing our artificial and disposable decorations from years past I suggested making some beeswax ornaments to hang in our windows.

We tag teamed this project as Kai was awake and inquisitive. My husband broke up the 2 1/2 lbs bar of beeswax we had purchased at the farmers market over the summer. He used a clever that was in the to be donated box because he was a bit too impatient for a cheese grater. You can skip this step if you buy your beeswax in bead form.

Then I put the beeswax bits in a metal bowl over a pot of boiling water until the beeswax had melted (don’t let it get too hot, beeswax has a low threshold for combustion). I had some plastic candy molds of my mom’s laying around, but you could use ceramic cookie molds if you want to avoid plastic. I carefully spooned the molten beeswax into molds and let them mostly set before adding a hole with a bamboo skewer.

It took about 30 minutes and made the whole house smell amazing. Handmade success!