Tag: candles

While stocks last…

I should probably mention my other special offer that’s up and running on Etsy, before it up and runs out!

All of the remaining scented candles in glass jars are being discontinued,  so there’s currently a voucher code to receive £5 off any candle in my shop. Simply enter the code “CANDLE5” at checkout, and it should do the maths for you. Unfortunately it only works once per order, not once per candle, so if you’d like to order more than one just contact me and I’ll make a custom listing for you.

When I made these candles they were greeted with great enthusiasm, but while the tea light packs sold out almost immediately, the large candles have mostly been sitting in a box. Realistically, I think they’re just too expensive for buyers to take a risk on without being able to smell them first. Hence the discount, which I hope will encourage a few people to go for it!

Airship Fresheners - tealight sample pack

Unfortunately four out of the five fragrances we chose for the Airship Fresheners have now been discontinued altogether, which means that they can’t now be repeated. Any large candles that are left over at the end of the month will be melted down and turned into tea lights, to try and prolong their availability just a little bit, but after that it’ll be all new smells!

I also want to try some new things as far as candles are concerned. Keeping in the theme of the pseudo-Victorian Emporium, I’m thinking along the lines of candles for banishing monsters, or lighting up a seance, or attracting (and repelling) all manner of fictional creatures of the night. A little bit more research will be required, but that will mean delving into my pile of of gothic horror novels, so I’m rather looking forward to it!

There’s also the long-standing project that’s been in the back of my mind for years, about making candles scented with essential oils. There are quite a lot of safety considerations involved with using essential oils at wax-melting temperatures, so again more research is needed before I can go ahead.

Whatever I make in future though, in the way of candles, will definitely be tea light sized! That way people can buy them individually if they want to, or I can offer small packs. Either way, they’ll be cheaper and easier to send through the post than big glass jars!

Christmas Fair & New Year Plans

Christmas Fair

This is Paul making himself comfortable behind the Eternal Magpie stall at the Berkshire Autistic Society Christmas Fair last Saturday. We were in a brand new school designed especially for kids of all ages who are on the autistic spectrum, which was a really lovely space. The floor was both squashy and heated, so he was actually much more comfortable than you might expect!

From a stall point of view the day was fairly quiet, but it was the first event of its kind in this venue, so I expect next year’s will be a lot busier. We were lucky enough to have some local friends pop in and do some Christmas shopping with us, and we chatted to some other lovely stallholders. We also met lots of families, some of whom I knew from working at the Museum, and some from my previous job with the Family Resource Centre. Two little boys had a great time sorting through all my button badges (they loved the maps), and another was extremely honest with us about the scented candles. Thankfully he was complimentary, his Mum was a bit worried he was going to say something rude! Everyone at BAS had clearly put a lot of effort into the event, and it definitely deserves to be a lot better attended in future.

However, as it turned out, we came home with just the right amount of money to tip my savings over into being enough to buy the set of hat blocks I’ve been coveting all year! So, an email has been sent to Guy Morse-Brown about a set of interchangeable crown and brim blocks for making felt cloche hats. There’s going to be a steep learning curve involved, but there will be (hopefully lovely) hats coming this way in the New Year!

tealight stack

There will be a number of other changes too. I’ve just discovered that four out of five of the Airship Fresheners fragrances have been discontinued, so I’ll be choosing some new candle oils in the New Year. Lure of the Kraken will continue to be available, and Hot Tea & Crumpets (currently sold out) I can hopefully buy another batch of before it disappears – but Sweet English Rose, The Arabian Nights and Cherry Bakewell will be gone completely once these last few candles have been snapped up. Still, it’s a good excuse to look for some interesting new fragrances, and there are a few I have my eye on already. Sloe Gin, anyone?

I’ve also decided to discontinue the large candles in the glass jars, and only make tea light candles in the future. The jars make the candles heavy and fragile, which makes them difficult to ship. I think sticking to tea lights and offering some kind of “pick-and-mix” option with the different fragrances is going to be a better way forward. I’ve also had requests for wax tarts rather than candles, so I’m going to be investigating the possibilities for those too.

I have kept back one large candle in each fragrance though, so that the winner of the Facebook Giveaway (almost there!) can have their pick.

Anyway, the next couple of weeks will be free from Emporium work as I take a break to spend time with Paul and our families, and also to do a little bit of sewing for myself and my niece. It’s Christmas Dress time again, and I’ve got some really sweet fabric waiting for me. I hope she likes it!

Candles & hand cream

Hand cream

Today has been mostly filled with making twenty-one candles in glass jars, and sixteen and a half tealights. Once that was done, I kept the bain-marie warm so that I could make some hand cream. I hadn’t done this for years, and I’d forgotten how easy it is.

Now that it’s just about cooled down I’ve tried it out, and I think it’s going to be a tiny bit too oily for my liking. It reminds me more of Neal’s Yard’s Wild Rose Beauty Balm than the kind of hand cream I’m used to. This might be because the soya wax is softer than the beeswax recommended in the recipe, so the cream doesn’t set quite as hard. Having said that, it sinks in really quickly, and the geranium essential oil (my favourite) makes it smell divine.

It took less than 10 minutes to make, with all natural ingredients, and was just enough to fill a little aluminium Lush tin. I’ll see how I feel about the recipe, and once I’ve perfected it I’ll share it with you! Now I’m looking on Ebay for either a pink frosted glass jar (that matches my dressing table set) or a white ceramic jar (that matches my bathroom), with a lid, that I can use for future creams and lotions.

Also, have I mentioned how lovely my husband is? This morning I grumbled that the most time-consuming part of making the candles was cleaning the kitchen before I could start. When I finally dragged myself out of bed, just after he’d left for work, I discovered that the previously messy kitchen was now absolutely spotless. Thank you, Paul!

Candle Day…

Candles in glass jars

Today I did get as far as making some candles – these are in 120ml amber glass jars, just waiting for their wicks to be trimmed before I pop the lids on. The tealight should give you some idea of the size, although I’ll admit that the picture’s at a bit of a funny angle.

Those of you who wonder why I don’t bake may begin to understand why when I reveal that I managed to get the weight-to-volume conversion for these completely wrong. I thought I was making five 120ml candles. In fact I turned out to be making seven 120ml candles plus another six tealights! Which means I now need to order more glass jars before I can finish making the rest of the fragrances. But on the plus side – more candles!

While I was placing the order for the second batch of jars, I thought I might as well make it worth the shipping fee by ordering a few more bits and pieces as well. I’m almost out of hand cream and moisturiser, which I usually buy from Lush, but I thought I’d have a try at making my own. I’ve done it before, and it’s no more difficult than making the candles… as long as you get the weights and measures right!

I’m currently a bit galled about having paid £30 for ingredients when it would have cost me £20 to go and buy my usual stuff from Lush. But then I’m buying a much greater quantity of oils and butters than would fit in my two little black pots, and their shelf life’s long enough that I’ll be able to make a good few batches with them, so it should work out more economical in the long run.

I plan to drag my aromatherapy training out of the depths of my memory (or perhaps read my old text books!) to make it even better for my skin. Hopefully I’ll be able to come up with something that smells nice, feels nice, and takes down a bit of the redness that the fibromyalgia causes. That might be a bit of a tall order for my first attempt, but I’ll give it a go!

Airship fresheners…

Soy Wax Tealights

…get it? Air fresheners? But they’re steampunk? So Airship fresheners! Anyway, enough of this silliness. Look! I made candles! These little soya tealights were so easy to make. The hardest part was choosing the fragrances in the first place, and then it was all about doing the maths (ugh) to work out the correct proportions of fragrance to wax.

Soy Wax Tealights

I’m making them in tiny little batches to start off with, while I decide which fragrances (maybe all of them!) I want to make into larger candles. This is a half-size baking tray, with the tealight cups and wicks in sustainers all set out.

Soy Wax Tealights

You melt the wax in a bain-marie – in my case a pyrex jug in a shallow saucepan full of simmering water. The soya wax melts at a much lower temperature than other types of candle wax, so you can work with it really quickly.

Soy Wax Tealights

Here they are, all poured out and waiting to set! I had a teensy bit of wax left over, because I didn’t fill the tealight cups all the way to the top. The wax has shrunk down a little bit as it’s set, so I know for next time that I can fill the cups right up to the brim without worrying about them overflowing.

I’m waiting for my last little bit of packaging to arrive, and then I’m going to make them up into sets of five, one of each fragrance. The first half a dozen sets will be for sale at a discounted price (don’t ask me how much, I haven’t done the sums yet!) over on the Eternal Magpie Facebook page.

Feedback will be very welcome on this first batch, and I think it’s easier to get a discussion going over on Facebook. Are the scents too strong? Too subtle? Just plain horrible? Or just right? I really like them, but once they leave my Shed I’m not the one who has to smell them any more! It’s always great to hear what people think.