If you want to make your own candles and soaps, you need shopping lists for the basic ingredients for both. Get to know the types of candles you can make: tapers, pillars, or votives — the varieties abound. And when you make soaps, you'll want to know how to fix common problems that affect the appearance and what causes them.

Homemade candles are budget-friendly Christmas gifts, but save even more money by using household containers as candle molds. Free candle molds are everywhere in your house, if you know where to look. For starters, open your kitchen cupboard. Unique jars, glasses, coffee cups, or salad bowls all make interesting candle containers, where you don’t remove the finished candle from the item.

Making soap for Christmas can be a creative endeavor. You can embed objects in your soaps to make them really special. Embedded soaps look like a million bucks, but this gift fits even a small budget. You can really let your creativity go wild with this if you know the criteria for choosing appropriate items. Use your head when thinking of objects to embed.

Scented homemade soaps make great Christmas gifts. If you prefer not to use caustic chemicals while making soap, then hand-milled soaps are your answer. The only special tool that you really need is a hand grater. The advantages of hand-milling soap are many: You don’t have to work with lye. You can buy a bar of your favorite commercial soap at your local grocery store.

Melt-and-pour soaps are so easy to make that you'll always have a stash of ready-made, homemade gifts on hand. To make melt-and pour soap, you begin with soap base from a craft store. Simply cut off the amount of soap base you need, chop it into cubes, and melt them in the microwave. Melt-and-pour soap is naturally translucent, so you can easily create a clear bar of soap.

Homemade soaps of layered colors and scents make wonderful gifts — especially if they've been custom-designed for the recipient. In a layered soap, you alternate colors and scents, all in the same bar. Although they look like you spent a lot of time making them, these visually appealing soaps are a snap to create.

Sometimes, your finished homemade soaps just don't look right. Disappointment is natural, but chances are you can still use and enjoy soaps you've made. You'll want to make your soaps to look their best, though, for gift-giving and for selling. Check out this list of common appearance problems and how to solve them.

Making your own soap, like making your own candles, doesn’t require a lot of supplies. When making melt-and-pour soap, you can get by pretty inexpensively. Follow this list to know the important supplies for soapmaking.. Double boiler or microwave: You need a heat source to melt your soap, so a double boiler is ideal.

Making candles and soaps at home doesn't call for an arsenal of expensive supplies. Here's a list of essentials candle-making materials you'll need to create your own tapers, pillars and votives: Double boiler: You can improvise by placing a smaller pot on a trivet inside a larger pot. Mold: You can buy fancy metal molds at your local craft store, or you can use household items, such as metal cans or yogurt cups.