BruceCarvesWax

I didnt know there were computers around that had 1 gig hard drives anymore. You sure its not 10 or 100 gig or more? Bruce

Would cost me that much in wasted wax... never tried to carved a sunflower before ya know

This is for the normal $250.00 prize or are you going to raise it to $500.00 this time? :tiptoe:

I kind of agree on that. I have an account in Stlouis that sells our candles and he sells stuff that I cant hardly give away and vise versa. I guess its fun to see what everyone sells the best but to say that it changes from state to state its more like changes from street corner to street corner. As for as what we sell, lilac and lilac based scents are number one all 4 seasons of the year for us at all the shows we do. Might even have to do with the picture for my lilac candle is real pretty and that draws them to sniff it? Pictures and packaging have alot to do with how a scent sells not to mention what you name a candle scent. I have one that has a picture of a stink bug on it and call it "tell me this done stink" I sell the heck out of it and it smells great, just a fun name that draws people to sniff it. Bruce

Most of those kits from craft and hobby stores are VERY high priced for what you get and if you like it and ever wanted to buy in bulk you would not be able to do it since most kits no one knows what kind of wax or wick ect are in them. They of course want you to keep buying them over and over so they don't give you exact details. Like ebay you hit and miss on the stuff. You don't want to waste your time with things you CAN'T REPEAT over and over again. Now candle supply companies like peaks and other want you to try a kit and then they can supply you with the items in bulk if you like them since THEY make up the kits themselves. Hobby stores are just that for a hobby and not for the person that wants to maybe go past that stage. Hobby store kits will let you make candles but you are not a candle maker... they are the candle makers, they picked out your wax, your wick, your scent and everything else, you just get to melt it and pour it in a jar, not as much fun as coming up with your own formulas for wax, wick, colors scent ect. Go with a candle supply company that has the kits, not hobby store stuff that you could never buy in bulk down the road if you wanted to. Bruce

I hear that, I have tested over 2000 samples of scent from over 25 companies and I only carry 140 scents... the rest were just not good enough to carry.... and i use regular wax if I were using soy those numbers would drop by about half i bet. Bruce

#3 is the best. Number one looks like it belongs on a box of produce.... most of them do as a matter of fact. A tree, field and a stream is the standard for produce items. Bruce

Geez did i really say 41z? Ummm I don't think they make a 41 it was a 44Z that I was thinking about..... 36z= votives, 44Z medium and 51z larger containers.... then comes the big boys like 60+ size zincs for apothecary jars and such. Sorry to confuse you (and me). Bruce

Yes that's a little strong for the first burns and its a real challenge to get that size of candle to burn a large percentage of the wax. Would almost be impossible to have all the wax consumed on those 3 wickers with out having to baby them along but you can get close. If your supplier has a 41z wick I think that might do you better. Lots of wick charts out there but each wax, scent and color combination can throw that off by a few sizes. Your starting right by digging in and testing one wick, now you know to go smaller unless you only want to burn them for 5 hours.. then it would be a perfect burn with what you have. Flat braid and square braid will bend over as they burn almost like a self trimming wick where the zinc will stand tall for hours which is ok for a container but not what people look for in a pillar candle. Bruce

WOW I didnt say only for container candles! touchy touchy hey? Maybe your supplier has never made pillars either or they dont want to carry other wicks? Sorry, I was just surprised you had never heard of those 2 wick types and have been making candles. BTW, if you get it all figured out I have about 20 of those big 3 wick molds (new) if you ever need more, Ill never use them. Bruce

The Z= zinc are mostly for container candles. They have a wire center made of zinc to make them stand up better in a jar when you are pouring. Looks like your going to be in for alot of testing if you have not heard of flat or square braid wicking. Read up or do a search here for that size candle. I really dont know if many people here make them (dont remember many pictures posted) since they take alot of wax to make and if they are highly scented a person could have $15.00+ invested in each candle real quick. Bruce

Thats what comes from managing a grocery store for almost 19 years. At times, because of sick workers I was the butcher, baker and candle stick maker. Done my share of decorating cakes and bakery work for sure. Oh, btw sometimes you can just dust the inside of the mold with the brown powder and get the same look. (colors the mold too, the only bad thing) Bruce

Those are about the best looking pies I have seen on here. My only observation is that molded crusts and tops always look the same shade but on real pies there are darker and lighter sections. I use a small artist brush and brush on brown powder dye here and there and shoot it with a heat gun for a second and it adds so much more to the look of the finished product. Great work and your photos are wonderful. Bruce

Its fun to do I poured a layer of wax onto a cookie sheet in the proper color and scent. When it cools enough you can cut them into slices but not even. You want to end up with strips of wax as long as the cookie pan about 1.5 inch wide at one end and about 2 inch wide on the other end. You smooth out the edges or even fold them under so no one can tell they are cut. You start rolling them from the wide end to the small end and then poke a hole for the wick. Ice or glaze them and your all set. I think I am going to make a bunch of mini one for this fall and sell them for melts. Bruce

Yeah the wind will take them if it wants to and nothing will hold them down. Im glad it happened later for us... could you imagine our 140 glass jars of incense being turned over and having well over 14 thousand incense sticks mixing up with broken glass on the ground! Talk about almost a huge mess! (not to mention all the candles on the tables) Bruce

Yeah it sure was crazy. We always tie all the tents together with bungees so earlier it would have probably turned over our tables and we could have lost tons of product or at least spend a bunch of time cleaning it up but as hot as it was and as frustrated as we were we would have been ready to leave it all there and drive home. Hope we dont see one of them again but they told us the week before one picked up someones tent and sent if rolling end over end in the parking lot. I guess they say the heat has alot to do with these things forming... like a mini tornado with heat from the ground hitting cooler air above. I truly dont think being spiked or screwed into the ground would have helped much, I have seen the wind bend and break them from high winds that come with a sudden storm also. They might stay spiked into the ground but the tent will be bent to the ground. One more strange thing about it..the bottom part of the tent legs, the part that slides into the top half of the leg to adjust how high it is? One of them was still in our booth space just laying on the ground. Must have picked up the tent so fast that it pulled right out. The cheap easy ups you can pull them out of, but never had it happen to the higher priced ones. Weird stuff. Bruce

Shes over on my side of the state scented so it would cost alot in time and gas to drive across state for a case or 2 of wax. It sucks all around. We raised our prices this year, our first raise in 7 years and we are still behind the times i feel. It aint going to get any better either. Bruce

Answer... a long damn ways! We were packing up last weekend and had everything in the truck at the fleamarket but the tents. I had all my legs and top buttons pushed so it was as low as it could go and I was pulling the legs together to finish it up and I saw a patio umbrella about 30 feet in the air just floating down and landed on my truck hood. Mind you there was NO wind at all and record high temp right as we were leaving. We have 3 tents so I look over and kelly is about done with her tent legs and she became covered with rolling dust and was hanging onto the tent. I went for the middle tent that was still set up and it drug me out about 10 feet and spun me around like I was throwing a discus ! We had ourselves a dust devil or what ever you call them. (Kelly says it was a .5 tornado) lol. When I quit spinning around the tent was on its side and had about 5 or 6 of the metal frame pieces snapped. I was in a daze, asked Kelly if she was ok and then noticed the tent I had down and was getting the legs pulled together was gone! It was behind a building about 50 yards away! The people around our booth on the right had no wind at all it was just a small path of hot dust. They said it opened up the tent and lifted it up in the air and threw it OVER the morton like pole building and it landed on the other side! Its an open side building and about 30 yards from where we were set up and its about 20 yards deep. They said it cleared the building by 20 feet and the building is probably 30 feet high in the middle! HOLY CRAP! Im glad we were packing up and no customers were out there. Lots of strollers and kids were there earlier and i could just see that tent I was spinning around with smacking everyone as we spun, wow that could have been bad. I chased the tent because we had a friend there that had his van close and thats why I was spinning around trying to keep it from hitting his new van. He told me there was no wind he felt at all but he saw it happen and started to run in front of the van to help me... but saw me start spinning and told me he thought to himself screw that the van has insurance... I dont. lol All said we threw 2 tents in the dumpster but did use some parts off the broken ones to mend the 3rd tent that had minor damage. Whew, nothing could have been done to prevent this type of deal either it just showed up and was gone just as fast. At that point in our packing up we would have had our stakes out of the ground anyway because you cant pull the pins to lower the tent with the stakes in the ground still. Weekend sucked, both days at 2 locations were record breaking heat so we were drained! Bruce

Ok I have to ask.. is the cinnamon bun hand rolled or is it molded? I seem to not be able to wait for molds to cool so I like to hand roll my buns. "sings" I like big buns and i can not lie, the smaller buns just dont fly! ok you guessed it, im tired. nice buns though Bruce

Bad day... maybe, but there are questions that I have answered for you and you either decline to reply or questioned my answer. Maybe you didn't even see the reply. I guess I always take note of things like that, not that it hurts my feelings lol but it helps to figure out what type of person is behind the user name. It sure looks like my post brought out the real you hey? Dang boy you sure get on a roll when you get riled up don't you. Hope your not always that high strung. You know we might be too much alike to ever agree on anything so don't take what I say personal and I will do the same. Looks to me as if we are just both very opinionated chandlers. BTW, I make about a dozen carved candles a year, we make our living on scented jar candles. No plans to sell my business, don't know why you would ask that other than to jab back at me for stating what I noticed about you from your past posts? Oh, and please... your remark about sticking to carved candles? ha ha NP have to run... 3 day show starts in a few hours but please have some fun with my post while im gone. Bruce

Well Duh! Im not talking about today... Im talking before they let it run to hell and milked it for every cent or scent they could get from it. They would have had a better profit selling it in one piece and yes they did sell millions per year so figuring one year sales as the selling price they could have had several million in their pocket and end their operating expenses a year ago. Your comments being they come from someone that doesnt even say "thank you" to answers to questions you have asked on here dont hold much weight with me.. sorry! Bruce

I find it strange that they would not try to sell the business before they just lock the doors and walk away. Seems like there would be more money to be made by selling it off for several million rather than running it into the ground. If the father died just a little while back and service has been off since last fall I don't think his passing has much to do with the whole deal. Everyone gets in a rut, this might be a huge opportunity for development of new dyes or bring some new mold makers onto the scene. I buy things from them and if they reopen I will buy from them again.. don't matter if I like them or not its MY customers that I'm looking out for so I can put up with lots of crap to take care of them. It truly doesn't matter to me if I don't like a company or not, if they have something that makes my customers come back to me and buy more I don't care what problems they have they will get orders from me unless I find better some other place. It took me 3 years of testing before I found one of the scents that I buy from pourette, if it takes 3 more years to find a better one, so be it. Just tell the customers perfection takes time. Bruce

I think they ordered molds from Pourette.... Im sure there were materials back then to make molds from. You could use wood with a hole drilled into it for a mold or any number of natural things. I could go out in my back yard, dig some red clay fire up a mold any shape I want it, pour wax into it, break or release the wax if it will come out on its own when it cools and there ya go. I dont think they would have used their hands to shape them, but sure, it can be done.. I just dont think thats what they did. Bruce

The site I talked about a few pages back was CHEAPER then pourette for chips. You have to request a price list to be emailed to you to see most of the prices. Bruce

Would have been nice to include that in your original post instead of saying "I heard" without any details... we love details ya know. I have no idea who letitshine is but with as large as pourette is/was I dont know why they would need to buy wax from someone that most of us have never heard of. Bruce