crafty

Candle Speedbumps

I know it’s to be expected and all, but I can’t help but be frustrated when things don’t turn out right.

Tonight, I tested out my new Cranberry scent, and made five tealights and one teeny votive for myself. The scent seems to be OK, but the color is off. I made the “cranberry” color as vivid as I could, and it ended up coming out more pinkish than cranberry. Maybe next time I’ll try my “red berry” dye and see how that turns out.

Last night, I made up a super-quickie batch of Eggnog tealights. They smelled OK, if a bit weaker than I’d wanted. I totally screwed up the color, though. I’m not used to working with *that* small of a batch, and I’d thought that a little touch of caramel color would look good mixed with the “sunshine” dye in the eggnog candles. Nope — they all turned out looking like somebody left the eggnog on the stove to burn or something.

On top of that, I put five different fragrances of tealights in one container, and the scents overpowered one another overnight. The Coffee totally made the Eggnog smell like nothing, and the Coconut was just barely there. Maybe I should look into a little bitty shrink-wrap machine for the individual tealights in my tealight multi-packs? I dunno.

On Friday night, I tested my Evergreen fragrance. One votive for me, and nine tealights. Doesn’t smell like evergreen at all, and the hunter/moss green dye I used came out more on the mossy side than the hunter side.

At least Mark’s Amaretto and Coke candles came out pretty good. The color wasn’t exact, since I ran out of the french vanilla dye and had to make do with caramel instead, but the scent was just as I remembered it. I also made myself a votive of it, and burned that tonight, and the scent throw is awesome on that one. I lit it in the basement, and the smell came all the way up into the living room. Nice.

Note to self: Don’t advertise a fragrance on your candle site until you’ve thoroughly tested it, approve of the fragrance, and have the dye ratio figured out. I now have some people interested in Evergreen and Eggnog candles, and I’ll have to just hope they forget about them until I’ve come up with something better than what I’ve got right now.

Pine essential oil, anyone?

crafty 6 Comments

Business May Soon Be Booming

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:

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… 😉

randomness

Estrogen Overload

I challenge any card-carrying, estrogen-toting woman to make it through a viewing of Steel Magnolias without crying. Or at least misting up. Especially the end (SPOILER WARNING… if you can spoil an 18-year-old movie):

M’Lynn (after her daughter’s funeral): I don’t think I can take this! I just wanna *hit* somebody ’til they feel as bad as I do! I just wanna *hit* something! I wanna *hit it hard*!
Clairee (pushing her grumpy buddy Ouiser forward): Here! Hit this! Go on, M’Lynn, slap her!

I don’t make a habit of watching Steel Magnolias. But when I surf past Lifetime and find that it’s playing, I either find it absolutely repelling or impossible to resist, depending on my mood. My estrogen level must’ve been elevated tonight after being all crafty; I cooked *and* made candles in the same night. 🙂

Cooking, crafts, and crying at a movie. I think I’ve had my fill of girlie stuff for a while. Makes up for joining in last week’s football pool at work, I guess.

writing

Grammar Geek

James: Which is right: “you or I” or “you or me”?
Me: In what context?
James: “Let me know if it is you or I.”
Me: *pauses* “You or I” is right.
James: OK. It sounded right, but I wasn’t sure.
Me: Yeah, it’s “you or I,” because it would be “me” if it were an object, but “is” is a linking verb, so the object would take the same…

*pause*

Me: I just totally geeked out on you, didn’t I?
James: Yeah.

the ongoing saga of my job 1 Comment

Lethargy and Employment Status

I don’t give a crap lately. I’m not motivated to do much of anything. I can’t get excited about recording my podcast, or exercising, or harvesting and storing my meager herb supply, or getting up in the morning and getting to work on time.

I think it’s because of my job.

Remember back when I was all stoked because James and I were getting a promotion, and would be working on the Loan Servicing databases all the time? Well, although we did finally get a raise (though our title change still hasn’t gone into effect), our joy was short-lived. Just about the time we were halfway done with our second database (of four), the shit hit the fan in my department. Our long-time supervisor took a new position, one person went on maternity leave, then two people got different jobs within the bank and one left to pursue her medical career. That left us painfully understaffed. So, James and I agreed to go back to doing normal Loan Corrections work.

New hires were scarce. One new hire decided she changed her mind and wanted to go back to her old department. One other person left the team for a different position within the bank. Meanwhile, James and I were plodding away, Taking One For The Team™. It’s been five and a half weeks now, with two and a half weeks to go. I’m counting the days, and hoping the new hires we have now train quickly and well.

I know Aaron says, “Your job doesn’t define who you are,” but going from a cool problem-solving gig back to less-challenging loan corrections has been surprisingly depressing. When I was developing databases, I broke my tardiness habit, just from being excited to tackle a new challenge every day. Lately, though, I’ve been coming late by 10 or 15 minutes, and just taking a shorter lunch to compensate. I’ve also been much less productive than I could be, and not just because I’m having to relearn how to do loan corrections after six months away from them.

What makes things worse for me is that our original database needs some serious TLC. The main table is currently holding upwards of 70,000 records, and that’s slowing down several processes considerably. We need to archive some of the older records, to speed up the most-used functions of the database, but that’s not going to happen for almost a month yet. Part of me wants to let it go to shit and show everyone how necessary we are — but part of me knows we’ll have to fix it eventually, anyway, and if we don’t do it fast, it’ll just reflect poorly on us.

I’m chomping at the bit to get back to the job by which I was just beginning to define myself. I’m not a web designer; I’m not a photographer; I haven’t been a musician for years, nor an artist; if I’m not an Access database developer, then damned if I know who or what I am.

But that’s another entry for another day.