So You Think You're Smarter Than Your Fiance?

The Salvation Army has been doing me right lately. I stopped in and found 72 votives for 15 bucks! That's about 20 cents per votive. My wallet is happy since we were looking at almost a dollar apiece.

However, a few of these babies had used candles in them and I went back to a previous post about cleaning out votives and tried out all the suggested solutions. I tried, unsuccessfully to pop them out. I got a couple of smaller ones out by digging a knife into it and turning the blade, but it only worked for a few. I microwaved one for a few seconds, but that turned into a goopy mess. While I returned to my try-to-pop-it-out-with-a-knife method, Mr. Lace
came up with his own solution.

"Put them in the freezer," he said. "Huh?" I replied? In my mind, I thought it wouldn't work. I was pretty sure I could do it with a little more elbow grease. But, I reluctantly listened though since he's an engineer and his job is to solve problem AND my methods had been unsuccessful thus far..

After a few minutes, I went back into the freezer and pulled out my now, very cold, votives. They looked no different. However, when I stuck my knife into the candle and turned the blade, they popped right out.

"Woah! You were right!" I said to Mr. Lace (words that, I am sure, are music to his ears). Mr. Lace explained that the cold would make the candle condense and pull away from the glass, therefore making it easier to pop out. DUH. I was always pretty good at science, I don't know why I didn't think of it. I didn't document the process because, well, I didn't think this would turn into a tip for you all, but here are votives, shiny and new ...well, sort of.

Did your fiance figure something out that you couldn't find a solution to?