Blog | Found In The Ground Candles, Rock Candles, Stone Candles – Found In The Ground Candles & Gifts

Finding the perfect housewarming gift for new homeowners can be difficult – you want the gift to be functional while being something they’ll love. Starting off room by room will help narrow your options and find something meaningful they’ll be sure to love. So whether your friend just bought a beachside condo in Miami FL, or your cousin bought their dream house in Toronto CA, here are 23 housewarming gifts for new homeowners to make their house a home.

Personalized wall signs to remind them they’re home

Every home needs a sign in their dining room that states “Gather with Gratitude,” and dousing it sparkly glitter always helps too. Because a house is simply a structure, it only becomes a home when you fill it with love. The only way to welcome love during life’s obstacles is by bonding together and sharing joyful moments around the table to catapult your soul forward. – A Dash Of Adorable

Beautiful landscape art is perfect for any room in the house

At CanvasPaintings.com we normally aim to provide unique artwork that fits a multitude of spaces like sunrooms, kitchens, bathrooms, etc. Family and friends might tend to like a certain style of art like abstract, floral art, or beach art and that’s easy to choose the right piece. The style of art that we see fit in the majority of rooms tends to be landscape artwork. Landscape and scenic artwork tend to fit in all rooms, granted you get the right color scheme. It can be a painting of a waterfall, a forest, a vineyard, the options are endless. – CanvasPaintings.com

Aesthetic books complete the living room

I have a habit of gifting new homeowners a couple of cozy coffee table books. It’s my personal home decor hack that doubles as something they can actually use. Books with a neutral cover look great anywhere – on a shelf, on a coffee table, as a riser to put a plant on, on a nightstand… and they can read them too, of course. – Denise Joanne

Alluring photography that will transform the walls

When looking for a special and unique gift for a new homeowner, a stunning piece of fine art photography decor is a wonderful choice. In interior design, wall art is often overlooked and in most cases is an afterthought, but I truly believe that wall art matters the most. When chosen carefully with intention, the right wall art can transform any room effortlessly. – Michelle Marie Sawtell Photography

Functional gifts homeowners will use daily

If you want to buy a housewarming gift for your new homeowner friends, it will help you to know their hobbies and interests. For the living room, you can make very fashionable hexagonal shelves. Bedside lamp for the bedroom. A stylish desk organizer for the study room. Finally, a wooden post and key chain can be a great choice for the entryway. – Tetrameles

House plants to brighten up the home

Houseplants are the perfect house-warming gift because they can brighten up any room. You can make it even more special by gifting a personalized planter. Our favorite is the custom pet planter because we love our fur babies. – Honey Gray

Gifts for the homeowner who loves to host

Since many dream of entertaining in their new home, the perfect gift would be a book on entertaining, along with a select few pieces they may not have handy in their kitchen and dining arsenal: a nice cheese board with a knife and spreader set, a cute stack of dipping bowls, a large serving platter or bowl with serving utensils, and a set of linen napkins. Wine goblets should be kept at a modest four, but regardless of glassware, I always include a nice bottle of wine. – Modest Muse Interiors

Custom address stamps to make a house a home

The perfect gift for new home buyers is something that makes them feel that they actually own the place and the perfect way to show that is with an address stamp. Using an address stamp is not only fun, but it gives the homeowner a real sense that this place is mine now, I live here. It’s a great gift and will remind them every time they use it, even if it’s for boring bills, that they own the joint. – The Homebody Society

Add character to the home with fine art

The perfect gift for a new homeowner is an exquisitely framed fine art nature photography print. Adding a piece of Mother Nature’s splendor to a new home is a unique way to brighten up a space in magical ways, be it a bedroom, living room, kitchen or office space. Nature wall art brings life to a room and adds character to any home decor and makes for the perfect gift. – Robbie George Photography

A personal chef for the kitchen

Without a doubt, the kitchen is the first room unpacked during move-in. So, help the new homeowner in your life activate their kitchen and enjoy the results without lifting a finger. With a Foodom gift card, a professional private chef will shop, prepare a home-cooked meal in their kitchen (and clean it all up) for less than the price of delivery. New homeowners will get delicious food they didn’t have to make, a house filled with the aroma of a home-cooked meal, and a little extra time to start unpacking the next room. – Foodom

Wall decorations for the homeowner with children

If you wish to surprise the new homeowner with a home decor gift, there is something that you basically cannot go wrong with. In the case a new homeowner has little children consider an animal or balloon-themed wall decal for the child’s room. Children absolutely love wall decals on their walls and it just brings the liveliness and childish vibes to those blank walls. – Stickerinos

Artistic items that will warm the home

While furniture and appliances are necessary to fill every house, what can transform it into a unique, personal home is art. Whether that be a framed print to hang or creative decor items to capture the eye, art is where homeowners get to go beyond the bare essentials of their house and begin to make it their home. Gift new homeowners with artistic items that bring warmth to blank walls and individuality to their new home. – Kim Hovell

Candles they can destress with

We all know that purchasing a new home is rewarding yet stressful. The gift of a rock oil candle to a new homeowner can combine the calming effects of a dancing flame and the healing properties of a polished agate, unique natural stone or sparkly crystal cluster. Many stones are said to relieve anxiety, create harmony, or encourage rest and this one-of-a-kind candle gift can be perfectly displayed on a kitchen island, coffee table, entryway or patio. – Found In The Ground Candles

Customized gifts for any room

The most popular housewarming or client gifts always revolve around family and the new home, such as our Family Recipe Cutting Board, Personalized Wine Boxes with a bottle of wine, and other household items they frequently use or see around the house. When picking out a gift, we advise customers to invest in a gift that has the following three qualities:

A gift that will be personal for them (such as having their family name engraved on it), don’t engrave your logo as this seems impersonal
A gift they will truly use and are interested in (cooking, cigars, family-oriented)
A gift that isn’t so expensive that it will make them feel like they can’t use it

– Kustom Products

Provide the insights of feng shui

Home is a feeling, the balance and harmony between you and your environment, a true sanctuary best created using the principles of feng shui. Thoughtful placement of beautiful artwork will lift the energy of a room, attract abundance, stability, overall well-being and perhaps most importantly, create joy. – Felicity Design & Decor

Give them a gift that keeps on giving

The kitchen is often referred to as the “heart of the home,” so a delivered meal might be the ultimate warm and welcoming gift for new homeowners. You can prepare it yourself, pick up their favorite carryout or ship a meal using SendThemAMeal.com. Don’t forget to add a candle, flowers, or seasonal cloth napkins to make their new space more like home. – Take them a meal

Add life to any room with throw pillows

Besides being one of the easiest ways to decorate a room, throw pillows are essential (to give a pop of comfort to chairs and sofas) for making sofas and chairs comfortable. They come in large, medium and small sizes, and add an incredible accent and volume to chairs and sofas. They are useful for bedrooms, guest rooms, TV rooms, nurseries, and even external areas. – MK Pillows

Consider anything from high-end to economic gifts

Looking for the perfect gift for new homeowners sometimes can be challenging, we have gathered 3 ideas from high-end to economic gifts that will be the perfect addition to their new homes.

Nothing says high-end luxury kitchen as a French copper cookware set on display. Copper pots complement any kitchen style from rustic to contemporary and will save time due to their great heat conductivity.
Make a bold color statement on any kitchen counter with a stylish knife set. Our knives are dishwasher safe and come with chic purple handles and a black wooden butcher block.
Mini speakers are small enough to be strategically placed out of sight and each pair can provide a full robust stereo sound anywhere in the house. Small enough to fit in your palm, they are also a great companion to take anywhere with you.

– DEI Equipment

Create a mood for the home through art

Art transforms a house into a home accentuating the lifestyle of who someone is and what they love. Beautiful art makes each room come alive with color and emotion making a home complete. – Laurie Snow Hein

Personalized items for the kitchen

The heart of the home is always the kitchen, where family and friends gather to celebrate. Creating that special space starts with making it your own. Personalize your kitchen with monogrammed glassware and a decorative cutting board. Who doesn’t love seeing their own design or name on something they use every day? – Ostling’s Laser Craft

A gallery wall homeowners will love

Tell a story with multiple framed photos. You’ve already got hundreds of photos on your phone that have some meaning to you and the new homeowner. Have a series of two or three of those images professionally framed so they can be hung in a collage or in a row – or in separate rooms – and make it easy to remember and relive the story. – Homekor

Remind them of the precious moments in their lives

When turning your new house into a home, it can take time for a space to feel comfortable and warm. Speed up the process by including various personalized pieces, such as a crystal decanter set engraved with your wedding date, that can serve as a reminder to the precious moments you have spent with your loved ones. That way, when you take a look around your new house, each piece’s special meaning will make you feel at home. – Personalized Engraved Gifts

Give them a one-of-a-kind treasure

One of the best things about being a new homeowner is personalizing your space and then showing it off to your friends and family! Custom-made kitchen wares, such as custom handmade chef’s knives or a beautiful charcuterie board with a handmade cheese knife can add so much personality to your kitchen as well as provide a talking point for your guests. Having something so special created especially for you can also allow for the opportunity to not only have a one-of-a-kind treasure but really gives you a chance to create something designed specifically to your taste and home. – Independent Mountain Jewelry

Let the homeowner decide what art fits their home

Artwork is a timeless, special, and meaningful gift and the perfect gift to give to a new homeowner. You can select an original piece of artwork, matched with the colors and decor of a particular room in the home, focusing on either the living room, a bedroom, the entry way, dining room, or the kitchen. Or, if you’d prefer, you can opt to give a gift card for artwork, so that the recipient can select a beautiful and unique piece of art that will set the tone for a room and will be remembered for years to come. –Hilary Winfield Fine Art

Posted on December 18, 2020December 18, 2020 by Matt

FITG Blog: How Its Made

Found in the Ground Candles takes pride in the quality and beauty of each of our handmade candles. But how do we ensure that the candle that now sits in your living room is unique and well made enough to be a Found in the Ground Candle? Our process takes several steps, starting with the individual stone.

To start, each one of our candles comes from an individually selected rock or fossil. No place is too big or too small to find a candle rock. Sometimes, we get them off the internet. Sometimes, we go out into nature (legally) and find rocks out in the world around us. Sometimes, and this is my personal favorite, the rocks jump out to us on our travels around the southwest. One time, we even stopped on a road cut high up above the town of Jerome in order to find beautiful rocks to create candles. I was lucky I don’t have a fear of heights!

Once our adventures are complete, we bring back the rocks to our workshop. Though we have the highest quality flat rock oil candles on the market, our process still takes place in a small, one person workshop. Though it isn’t much, it is all we need to create our candles.

The first step to creating a Found in the Ground flat rock oil candle is to drill a hole in the candle. Our staff carefully selects the placement of the drilling for both aesthetic and balance purposes. Next, we put the rock under our drill press. The drill press is helpful because it drills straight down, with no risk of us shaking a drill and breaking a beautiful agate. In order to ensure the rocks, especially the agates, don’t break during the process of drilling, we have a special process that we perform during drilling. What is that process, you may ask? Well, consider that a trade secret.

So now, we have a rock with a hole in it. Now, you have to make a candle out of it. To do that, we cement a reservoir to the bottom of the rock. At this point, your rock is almost a candle! All you need to do now is add a wick and light it.

The Found in the Ground process creates the most unique and vibrant candles on the internet. Though there are many imitation candles, ours are the only ones that use the Found in the Ground process to make a special part of your decor.

Posted on October 1, 2020October 1, 2020 by Matt

Agates 101 – Found In The Ground Candles

By far the most striking candles in our inventory are our agate candles. But what are agates? Where do they come from? How do they form? If you’ve ever found yourself asking these questions, this is the right place for you!

Agates, what are they made of? That answer is actually way more complicated than it first may seem. Agates have two basic components. The first is quartz, a silica based mineral that gives agates their unique translucence. The other main component of an agate is chalcedony, a quartz variant that gives agates their lustre and their color, as well as the banding pattern. Chalcedony occurs in blue, gray, yellow, or brown, which are all classic agate colors. Beyond this, agates have other minerals involved that create unique variants. Oxidized iron creates a variant called Moss Agate for its green color, while hematite creates a brilliant red Fire Agate. Agates are a simple recipe that creates a brilliant addition to your space.

What makes agates unique from other shiny stones? That would be the unique property of “banding”. Banding is the layers of color and symmetrical patterns that occur inside the agate. In most agates, the bands follow the symmetry of the wall of the rock. In some unique agates, however, the bands are horizontal. It is this banding, however, that distinguishes agates from other colorful minerals.

How does one go about finding an agate? They are not exactly just lying around, right? Actually, they totally are! You just have to look under, or in this case, inside some rocks. If you find an ancient lava flow or a glacial flow, you have a chance to find an agate. Agates are igneous, which means that they have to form from gas pockets within lava flows that hardened and filled with other minerals, namely quartz. There could be an agate outside of your house at this very moment! Agates are therefore quite common, but also quite hidden.

How long have agates been around for humans? For as long as humans have liked shiny objects. The name agate comes from Ancient Greece, where the philosopher Theophrastus first wrote about the luminous stones. Even before then, into prehistory, humans have been using agates in jewelry and decoration. The brilliant colors are just as eye catching now as they were to our ancestors.

So how are agates prepared? First, you have to find the agate. Next, you start cutting the agate into thin slices, like a loaf of bread. Then, the agate is polished. This polishing is what makes the vibrant agate into a luminous centerpiece. This is where the agate is when Found in the Ground orders them. From there, we put a hole in the middle with a drill press, after which we attach a reservoir. Boom. You have your agate rock oil candle ready to light.

Handmade Pink Agate Rock Oil Candle — Pink Agate Rock Oil Candle

Crystal Blue Agate Rock Oil Candle, — Pink Agate Rock Oil Candle

Posted on August 28, 2020October 1, 2020 by Matt

Our Story – Found In The Ground Candles

By Matthew Rounis

The story of Found in the Ground Candles begins with one person. Me. Now, I don’t mean to sound full of myself here, I definitely inspired the candles you’re looking at. Don’t worry, I’ll explain.

Most kids go through a phase of their lives where they really like dinosaurs. I was no different. Except for me, that phase began a little later, around 12. Luckily, I had the supportive parents I did growing up. When I say they were supportive, I mean it. Their encouragement of my new hobby brought them into a series of increasingly ridiculous situations involving fossils. Though we started our candles with Green River Fish, some of the best stories are some of the other fossil trips we experienced.

The first one I remember was in Big Water, Utah. As we drove by a cliff on the road north, I begged to stop. This cliff was a solid three or four miles off the main road, but my awesome parents stopped anyway. It paid off for me. Every rock I took out of this cliff had a plethora of fossil shells in it. I picked up a few before it was time to continue our journey. We packed up a box and started the car. Or at least, we tried to start the car when we found out the battery of the little Toyota had run out. Triple A wasn’t going to get there for three hours. So what did I do? I found more rocks. By the time we left, the little Toyota was brimming with ancient sea life. Many other parents would have cut me off after that. I’m lucky mine didn’t.

A few years later we were driving the same route on US-89 where I had heard about a dig for some beautiful trilobites in nearby Delta, Utah. What I didn’t know was that Delta was only the beginning of the road to the fossil quarry. So what did my mom and dad do? They trekked our silver Kia minivan across the desert until we came across a leathery old man with three teeth and an excavator. Needless to say, we found a plethora of trilobites in this out of the way spot, some of which are now beautiful candles.

The most insane time we had looking for fossils was in the tiny Arizona town of Jerome. Or, to be more accurate, it was a couple hundred feet above Jerome. I had found a rumor on the internet that a road cut above the tiny town would yield brachiopods, or tiny shells. So what did we do? We willed that minivan to a giant, sheer cliff above the town of Jerome. At this point, I think my mom and dad would have been more comfortable experiencing one of the town’s notoriously unsettling paranormal encounters, because we were pretty high up on a very narrow road. Needless to say, when someone needed to pass us going the other way, everyone’s knuckles were a ghostly white, as we thought that minivan was going to fall. To top it all off, I didn’t even find a fossil that day.

The point of all these stories is that, by the time I had exited my fossil phase, we had a house packed with fossils. I remember when I moved to college, my mom wondered out loud what she was going to do with all the rocks in my room. Turns out, she just needed some time to sit on the idea, because six years later she called me with this idea. What if we took one of the flat rocks I took from Wyoming, and made it into an oil candle? I replied that it would be a great idea. A few days later she had created her first candle. A few weeks later she had sold her first one online. Three months later, the etsy shop is booming and our house looks like my closet did all those years ago. Needless to say, it feels pretty great to see my mom’s idea start to flourish. But now it’s my turn to support. I just hope it doesn’t lead to any close calls on isolated cliffs.

-Matt Rounis