Farm Girl on the North Shore: November 2012

Making candles has its ups and downs. Despite the fact that Drew has to deal with the constant wax mess I'm creating and his perpetual fear that I'll burn the condo down... there is a certain joy to candle making known only to those wonky enough to give it the old college try.

The picture in the book is what the candles should look like. Lemon/Orange candles were a "down" moment.

Creating 20 unique rock candles for my friend Bryana's wedding was a definite "up" moment. We also made candles out of invitations for a few of our friends that were married this summer, another up.

The first Amandle craft sale...an up, and a down...

I've been filling mason jars from the wedding with wax every weekend. I also started making these gourd candles:

I definitely overestimated the demand for these candles.

First, I made about twenty candles.

Then, Bry and Kristen were due for a girls' night. I decided I'd take advantage of their free labor.

Bry and I ran to Target to pick up some gourds to carve and transform into pumpkin candles.

"So, two bags or three?" I asked as I picked up the little gunny sacks of gourds.

"Ummm, I was thinking one would be plenty." Bry responded.

We compromised on two. *I'd like to note here that the "free labor" idea did not pan out as these two ladies just sipped on their wine and watched me carve the pumpkins.

So now I had about 45 gourd candles...

But that didn't stop me. I picked up two more gunny sacks of gourds while grocery shopping with Bonnie.

Bry and Kristen were wise enough not to offer to help. Bonnie wasn't so lucky, she had no choice- I just gave her a spoon and told her to start scraping.

Seventy gourd/pumpkin candles later, I was ready for my very first craft sale. I thought I was going to be rich. I was planning to sell the candles for $5 a pop, or maybe $3 at a minimum. I thought they would go like hot cakes.

I'd only been at the sale about 5 minutes before I reduced the price to 3 candles for $5, or $2 each. By noon, I had sold one gourd candle.

Drew joined me for lunch and immediately struck the prices even further. He changed the price of gourd candles to $1 a pop, and still we couldn't get rid of them.

Turns out, people don't really want to buy candles that will eventually rot. We made $45 whopping bucks, whoo hoo! Looks like my family will be getting mason jar candles for Christmas, and I'm sure my Thanksgiving spread will look even better with about 30 gourd candles to spruce things up!

I did manage to spend most of the profits buying crafts made by my coworker Alyssa. I can't post any pictures of them here because I'd be spoiling the surprise for their intended recipients on Christmas day!

Ending on a positive note, the name "Amandles" received rave reviews. Now I just need to work on the product!