Bernadette

I have always sold exclusively online, and since I opened my webstore at the beginning of 2002(after leaving eBay), sales have increased every year, all year. Thanks to several lines I carry that people what all year long, I've been busy all year round....until this year. It has been so hot everywhere since May, customers are turned away from shipping, since none of the services will honor insurance claims for "melt". I've never been able to use pickup for any shipping service here in the summer, as the days are over 100 degrees, and if the package is in the truck all day long, temps inside the truck can get hot enough to fry an egg just for the lunchhour lockup. It appears it's been like that everywhere this year. So now I have to go back to the drawing board and figure this one out if this continues to be the weather trend for next year...

Funny you say that, Pam...my grandmother taught me 60 years ago and I've been tatting ever since. I have all her antique tatting shuttles, sissors and such too. I didn't learn from any books, but thanks to my grandma's teaching skill, there isn't any tatted item I can't look at and make. If you go to a specialty yarn or knitting store, they usually have a tatting section where you can get instruction books.

I print all my labels online, and when I plug in the customer zipcode for express, it will tell me if it's 1 day or 2, and by what time of day it will arrive. It's always been accurate for me in the 10 years I've shipped so I'm not worried about that. Some locations even have Sunday and Holiday delivery for an extra charge. But I hadn't used it for a few months, and had no idea they had implemented an express flat rate box.

Thought I would post this since I had no idea. I only sell online so I ship all the time, but I got 2 orders Friday from a customer that wants them shipped express mail. Because of the weight, each was going to cost almost $70.00 for express shipping. Then I found out there's a flat rate shipping option for express mail now. Like priority mail, you can ship up to 70 lbs., same size as the large priority flate rate, and the cost is $39.95! Big difference.:tiptoe:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the original poster was asking about pool floaters, which are totally different animals from floaters that are burned in a container(usually indoors). A small sized, small wicked pool floater will not work well at all. I have made, tested and sold thousands of pool floaters for over 8 years now. I test designs in my own pool, in a usually pretty windy area of the country. I do not use beeswax or soy, only paraffin and gel. All of my pool designs burn for a minimum of 8 hours; some over 15 hours. Most weigh at least half a pound. For a pool, you want a larger flame(to stand up to breezes), and to get a long burn time, you need a larger size. I have found you need approx. a 5" diameter design. If using a smaller diameter design, you need at least a 3" depth. If you're making a pool floater to accomodate a tealight or votive, you must make the depth of the hole where either the tealight or votive will be inserted at least 1/2" taller than the tealight or votive. The wicks used in both are too small to stand up to breezes.:tiptoe: HTH

Just finished watching a piece on Good Morning America about the Yankee man candles. Laura Spencer mentioned all the scents, and had one of each that she passed around to George, Robin, and Josh. None of them looked pleased with the scents, and Josh said they should have left the tops on!!!!:laugh2:The only one they seemed to like at all was the one that smelled like fresh cut grass.

Please elaborate alittle more...you want to use 2 different waxes in the same candle with 2 wicks?

Along the same lines, I was looking to place a small order with BCN this weekend for a rush order. When estimating the shipping, the USPS flat rate options came up as 2-3 days, but the straight priority rate came up with 10 days. What the heck is that?!

You don't want to do this for sure. Remember, gel has a very hot meltpool. The recommendation is leave 1/8" - 1/4"(even more depending on the diameter of your container) around the side of the glass as an insulator. Otherwise, the glass could get too hot. Someone could get burned if they touch it, or the glass could get too hot and crack. Once the flame goes below the initial insulator layer, the heat will melt it, and so on. Another way to know if you are overwicking is you will get a real chemical smell while burning, fragrance or not. I used to hear this problem from potential customers all the time and they hated it! I tried to replicate in testing and found that the overwicking caused it.

Dana, I use zinc wicks, purchased by the roll/spool, not premade, and I use many sizes because I use alot of different glass - glass pillars in different diameters/heights, balls w/large or tapered openings, squares, triangles, etc. I use different types of wicks for tealights and floaters. I have found that any kind of breeze will make them smoke(ceiling fan, air conditioning/heat blower, window breeze, etc.), but I've never had sooting unless they were over wicked. Oh! I forgot! What fragrances are you using and how much? The "heaviness" of certain types of fragrance combined with over wicking will really blacken the glass.

Gee, ladies, I've been making gel candles since 1998, selling since 2000, and have not had sooting/smoking problems. I only sold gel candles until 5-6 years ago, but still sell a ton of them. I use the HD Penreco. I do what some would call excessive testing, and the only time I've had sooting was when I overwicked. When I first started, I thought I was underwicking because the first couple burns looked like the candle was tunneling, but the gel would melt down and catch up to a level surface. The only time there is smoking now is when you blow them out, but that can be eliminated by dipping the wick to put it out. I'm surprised you're having this problem.

2/21 to yesterday for me...it might be a bit longer than 14 days.

If you're paying with a debit card, definitely check your bank account. On the 21st of Feb. the site was having a printing error problem, and although a message came up that my account had not been charged and try again, they ended up taking out $96.00 for $16.00 worth of labels! I just got the refund to my account today!

It all started about a month and a half ago. I got an email from someone I did wholesale with over 12 years ago(stopped because they sold out and moved three states away from where they were into a different business). I remembered the name because it was so unusual. When I clicked on the email, there was nothing but a link, so I religated it to spam. Since that first email from them, I've received many others, with subjects that I know are spam/phishing, because I get them from others. Now, I've started to get emails from customers' emails from when I sold on eBay...again, over 12 years ago. All went into spam as there was nothing but a link. I'm 5 computers beyond what I used back then, have not saved their email address online, and have no idea where these current emails are coming from. Does anyone know how this is happening? I haven't the faintest...:rolleyes2

Tammy, I hope you will take this in the spirit given, but all you have on your lovely website is your company name. Anyone hitting your site has no idea where you are or even your first name. The only way to contact you is using your contact form. People will not recommend nor buy from a small business type site with such limited access to the owners. They do not know if you are legitimate or not. I've been selling only on the internet for almost 15 years now, and get phone orders all the time, plus people know where I'm located so they know the time zone and call at appropriate times. I think it would make a difference if you included more information about yourself. There's approaching 9800 members here and we all know you're in OK, so what could it hurt:wink2:?

Gas is still under $3.80/gal. here, but where our vacation home is...$4.99-5.19/gal:shocked2:, and it's not all that far away from several good suppliers, and many customers...

Has anyone ever used heavy cardboard molds before? Do you have to coat the inside with anything? Or do you just cut them off afterwards? Any thoughts would be appreciated, but I really hope someone who has used them before can shed some light on how they worked. Also, do you have to wrap them in towels or something to slow the cooling? TIA for any input.:smiley2:

Since the price of gas has gone up every day for the past...what is it?...28-31 days?...I've noticed the shipping services and some suppliers have started to raise their shipping charges. Get ready. If it keeps up, this could get nasty.:tiptoe:

I usually use color blocks, but since I'll be mixing colors(I'm told brown and yellow make amber), I think I'll be using liquid. I'll be ordering all supplies tomorrow.

I would need to "medium" color 25 lbs. of wax? I have an order that requires 25 lbs. of amber colored wax, and I want to make sure I have enough dye to do it. I realize it would be approximate, but at least I'd have an idea of how much dye I'd need to have on hand. TIA:tiptoe:

As stated, this was taken from my shipping bank account. The actual cash.

This is from the first link, marioncandle.com. It's the shop page, if this link doesn't work: https://marionpcandles.3dcartstores.com/

I print USPS labels thru the USPS site almost everyday. Early this morning, I had to priority flat rate domestic labels to print. The total was $16.00. So I enter all the info, hit the print button and get a message that the site has an internal error, my card would NOT be charged, and to try again later. These had to go out today, so I kept trying. Finally, the sixth time was the charm, and off they went. I pay cash thru a shipping account I have. Well, I checked the account this afternoon, and USPS HAD processed my card - 6 times!!!! So instead of taking out $16.00, they took out $96.00! When I called USPS, I had to wait an hour to talk to someone, and although they are refunding me the money, it'll be 10-14 days before I get it. This is the first time in 14 years that I've had anything like this happen. So for those of you that use USPS, just check because they really screwed up this am.:tiptoe:

When I went to the site, I see 7 fragrances...2 more added at Christmas time. It's growing...

Please read the original post again....I did not purchase this item on ebay. I purchased it from their website. After a week, I wrote and simply asked when it would ship, period. I was not snotty or impatient, just wanted to know. I filed the dispute with Paypal, not ebay. The only reason I filed the dispute was because paypal notifies the other party, with my message. I did this in case my emails were not getting thru.