The Candle Lady

It seems my Blue Moon and Moon Flower candles….SOLD at Sam’s!

I didn’t get a good deal on that but it’s ok. Honestly, I didn’t even break even on the glass.

But…they sold! I don’t know what he got for them, I’ve never asked. But it was enough that….

I went up there yesterday morning to get my cigs as I do almost every morning and almost every morning I check the number of my candles left in stock. Yesterday, it was 1. One lonely Moon Flower candle left. I think it was Moon Flower, can’t say for sure anymore.

I was getting my cigs and the store owner said people like my candles and he would like to have more to sell. I should have been jumping out of my shoes but I wasn’t properly caffeinated yet and I’m not the type of person you just say things like that to. You know…compliment. I never know what to do.

So I said that I was great and I thanked him and told him I didn’t have any more candles for sale but I’d get right on it.

That wasn’t exactly true. I knew it when I said it but I’m always worried about the size of the candles. His store is lovely and I really like going there but it’s small and I don’t want to take up a lot of his space, I even told him that when I went back there this morning. He smiled, shook his head, and told me not to worry about that because ‘they like your candles’.

I came home yesterday morning knowing I had a rather full day ahead of me….for someone who’s unemployed I always seem to have a full day ahead of me…..I looked through my cure cabinet. I found 5 Strawberry Moon candles. I burnt one. What the hell? They’re mine and I am ‘quality control’ so…. Anyway it burnt very well! Completely even and all nice-nice. I wasn’t crazy about the scent. They didn’t come out as strawberry as I’d like that will teach me to buy ‘essential oil’ from China, especially at that low low price.

Oh bother.

I grabbed them and the 3 Yin-Yang pillars I had left. I grabbed hubby’s heat gun. I really need to get my own. I took care of the air bubbles though you can’t really tell because the jars are a ribbed pink glass. I melted the tops rather deeply and heated it up all around the top of the outside of the glass. I dropped in more strawberry scent making sure to get it around the melted edges.

Oh they smell lovely now!

Hopefully, since I did it that way, at least some of the ‘essential oil’ will manage to find it’s way deeper into the wax as the candle burns.

I know it’s a bit of a cheat but I really didn’t like the way they smelled and I spent so much time on them and had such fun that day I also really didn’t want to destroy them by melting them down and starting over. Besides, when I charged them that night, this happened.

That’s not a ‘camera trick’. It is not ‘out of focus’. That’s an energy field. A vortex to be exact. I’m telling you these candles truly ARE special. I wanted to keep them that way.

No, I don’t advertise that the candles are ‘charged’. Not there anyway. But my card does say ‘handcrafted with intent’.

I melted the tops. Let them set. Rummaged through a box of ancient ‘pretty it up’ stuff that I bought at the Dollar Store years ago. Got some ribbon out of it. Must get more. I sat down at my computer and created a new business card to put on them.

With a lot of hope in my heart I came up with a back for the card. I wasn’t sure my printer would print on both sides and when I got to that part, since it’s been so long since I worked at the church, I couldn’t remember if it was ‘flip on the long edge’ or ‘flip on the short edge’ when it came time to print. BUT I got it right.

That’s the back of the card.

I fussed over my labels for the Strawberry Moon candles. My colors are what you see above and blue. But I wanted something different. I came up with.

I got everything put together just in time to sit 5 minutes before running out for the next 3 hours.

Yeah, sorry, I didn’t AI these for you. I really like the card. What do you think?

Just as I was finishing up hubby came through the kitchen and said; “Look at you, being the small business owner. They look great.”

I thought; Well, maybe. Maybe this will take off. And I can finally be like my mom.

My mom made wedding cakes, great big wedding cakes. Not the stuff you see today, three layer shoved on top of each other and whatnot. REAL wedding cakes with fountains and columns, and staircases leading to other cakes with intricate looping and frosting flowers (which I helped make from time to time when she got real busy). My mom made beautiful cakes. She made a lot of money under the table doing it. Doing something she just sort of fell into one day and ended up loving. For decades everyone around knew my mom as The Cake Lady.

I want that. I want to be The Candle Lady. (since I’m going to be the Best Selling Author Lady…Tron Ares, really?????? Friggin’ Wonder Woman BS.)

It used to be part of The American Dream. Being able to do something that you love and that you excel at to make your living was the goal.

This morning I took my box of candles up to the store. I got a better deal. Not great. But better. I should add in that the Dollar Store really helped lower the final cost to me in making them so that was good. He was happy to see them. I was happy that, if nothing else the most important part of this equation is being put into play in that these candles are finally finding the homes and people I made them for. That makes me very happy to think that my little candles might burn brightly enough to help someone along in that moment in time if not, maybe, a little longer than that.

Just so you know, these Strawberry Moon candles, are for Love. Made in the month of June named for Juno Mother Goddess, and the reason brides get married the most in June, were created by me, and the Goddess I ‘hang with’ while we laughed and sang and danced in the kitchen. It was a wonderful time! The candles are full of high energy aimed at bringing Love, resolving old loves, getting over them, going forward with a new love to be brave enough to try or strengthen the love you already share with someone.

I didn’t put that on the label.

Anyway, for my efforts, and in return for 8 candles, I got 2 pack of Newports.

Laugh if you want but that’s almost $35.00 here in CT.

So, you know, better than the last deal where I ended up paying some towards the cigs.

LOL

Long Ago and Far Away, hubby was in a very very good band called The Hookah Kats. They played all around the local area for a while but almost never for money. We always joked that they ‘played for chicken wings’. Eventually they got some cash but not much and someone stole the tip jar once. Jerk.

Here I am, starting out, making candles for cigs. Maybe one day I’ll level up to chicken wings but for now this ok.