dianaschnuth

Remember when Rob asked me to make him a manly candle? Well, that jump-started me back into candlemaking, and I made a batch of Amaretto and Coke candles last night. I ended up taking one of them to work with me, and quizzing my co-workers about what alcoholic beverage they thought it smelled like. Now I suddenly have major interest in my little enterprise — well, four potential buyers, anyway, and at least one person who might just buy a crapload of candles from me as Christmas gifts. Considering I’ve only ever sold one pack of tealights and one candle, that’s major interest.

Now I have to decide: do I gear up for a big run, and potentially have a bunch of candles and containers and scents and packaging material that might just end up taking up space; or do I keep my operation on the down-low, and only make custom candles as requested, keeping my inventory of premade candles at a minimum?

I’ve already decided that I want to SQL-ify my candle website, making it more easily updateable as I sell candles and as I get new fragrance and container inventory. Not redoing the design, just managing the content.

I guess the big question is, do I ramp up my production, at least of sample tealights? I’m saying that’s a yes. On the samples, I mean. Samples are good. Also, do I wait and see which of my current scents sell, and just focus on those, or do I branch out and get even more scents for diversity’s sake?

I don’t really expect answers from the peanut gallery — I’m just asking them to give myself something to think about, I guess. If you have any pearls of wisdom, though, I’ll gladly take them.

I do have a request, though. Name me off some mixed drinks that would smell good as a candle. Ones that I’ve already thought of:

• Amaretto Sour
• Amaretto and Coke
• Cosmopolitan (Cranberry, Orange & Lime)
• Sex on the Beach (Cranberry, Orange, Pineapple & Peach)
• B-52 (Kahlua & Bailey’s Irish Cream)

Any other ideas?

Update, 10/22/06: Additional ideas from my friends/readers:

• Mojito (Lime, Mint, Rum)

I have on order Lime, Kahlua, Bailey’s Irish Creme, and Bay Rum fragrances. I already have Amaretto and Cranberry and Coffee and Spearmint on hand. If I can come up with a way to make a White Russian (Mary) or a Jäger Monster (Fries), I’d definitely be up for those. For now, I think I’m going to focus on drinks that are a.) fruity or b.) include Kahlua.

Damn — now I’m going to have to do some “field research” to discover new candle scents… 😉

I have a kitty on my lap and the smell of Drakkar candles in the air. Sometimes, life is good.

I hadn’t made candles for several months. Then, last week, one of my co-workers approached me and asked, “You make candles, right?” I answered in the affirmative, and he went on to say that he had been disappointed by his most recent Yankee Candle purchase, and was seeking a new supplier of smelly-good and long-lasting candles.

He explained that he required a big, manly-smelling candle. So, I had him sniff the Drakkar tealight I keep at my desk, and he was sold. (I had referred him to the somewhat outdated list of fragrances on my website, and he’d decided it was either that or evergreen.) We agreed that I would make him an appropriately large and smelly candle, and he would give me ten bucks for said candle.

Of course, I was almost out of wax, so I had to make a run to Michael’s tonight; and, of course, the pint-sized mason jars I bought at Big Lots for the purpose of candle-making didn’t look quite as big when I unpacked them. But that’s OK. The price listing on my site says that 16 fl. oz. candles are $10.99 plus shipping, so I’m actually cutting him a deal. 😉

I always have a problem actually *selling* my candles, being that the only people who buy are people to whom I feel I should just *give* candles. Then there’s the random e-mail I got a year or two ago, asking if I do wholesale.   o.O   Um, I melt wax in a glass three-cup measure in my oven, dude. Sorry, but I can’t be your primary candle supplier.

I’d forgotten how much I enjoy making candles, though. It’s really a cold-weather pastime for me, since I have to have the oven on for a good part of the evening, so I haven’t done any candle-making for a while. Tonight was probably the first time in… *thinking* …maybe close to a year.

Making candles also helps me be more productive in other realms, too, since I have to keep myself occupied while the wax melts, then again while it cools to a good pouring temperature. I ended up going to Kroger while I was out at Michael’s, and getting stuff for Friday’s potluck (OMG ice cream cone cuppie-cakes with white chocolate chips). When I got home, I made my dinner (also purchased at Kroger — I haven’t had imitation crab in ages), did a load of laundry, put the dishes away, cleaned up my desk, and did some maintenance to the LSM website, all while either waiting for the wax to melt or to cool.

I’ll have to order up another 10lb bag of soy wax and maybe some essential oils to experiment with. I have a crapload of votive-sized containers in a cupboard in the kitchen, just begging to be made into random gifts…

My Kujibiki Unbalance cosplay costume is complete.

Well, almost. I still have to cut my armbands to size and iron my skirt one last time. But everything else is ready to go.

I put my costume on as soon as I had the last circle of felt glued to the helmet. My shadow had a weird silhouette as I walked up the stairs to the bathroom, to look in the full-length mirror.

I only felt a little ridiculous in my big blue skirt and giant poofy helmet of flannel and felt. Even so, I think my cosplay kicks ass. It has its small flaws — but overall, I’m pleased with my very first cosplay attempt.

Unfortunately, the batteries in the digital camera are dead, so I can’t post a picture of my cosplay yet. But we’re going to get fresh batteries on the way to the con, and we’ll take plenty of pics while we’re there. My co-workers are demanding to see a large photo of me in costume, so I’ll have to oblige both them and my general blog readership. 🙂

While I was sorting through some of my random crap last week, I found a Ziploc baggie of buttons. Pins. Whatever you want to call them. I used to collect them, once upon a time — not really as a hobby, just as something cool to have. Kind of like my varieties of Post-It Note pads. But I digress.

It occured to me that it’s kind of pointless to keep all this crap if I’m only going to pull it out of a box every now and then, look at it, and put it away again. I have other knick-knacks and keepsakes that I’m planning to make shadowboxes for — but for my button collection, a simple fleece display will do.

I had threaded my new Singer Tiny Serger (purchased at Savers for $3) with hot pink, blue, and yellow thread, so that I could tell a.) how to thread the bitch thing, and b.) if it didn’t work, where the problem lay. As it happened, there was no serger troubleshooting needed, but threading it took FOREVER. I really didn’t want to have to rethread it for my next project… so I chose a relatively funky-friendly project to practice with.

All I did was serge around the edges of a 12″x18″ piece of white fleece, install eyelets in the corners (I didn’t use interfacing, and that might come back to bite me later), and thread a couple thread chains from the serger through the eyelets for hanging. Just add buttons. Pins. Whatever.

An extremely simple project, but fun and useful. I’ll get this arts-n-crafts thing down yet.

I hate that, when I try something and it doesn’t quite work right—like, say, fabric paint on fleece—I immediately get really depressed and think I had a bad or stupid idea. It takes me a while to get over that first gut reaction and to start thinking of alternatives to my first idea.

That bothers me.

‘Nuff said. I’m not ready to reveal my latest craft project quite yet. I apparently need to go buy some iron-on transfers and see how *those* work on fleece… (Sheryl and Aaron, shh.)