redraider

Not sure of the the quantity you are talking about. I assume you mean unburned candles that you have extra of. Every year after Christmas I box up my left over fall/holiday candles into the boxes that my jars come in. I move them into a closet in the house that is dark and gets no sunlight. I do that with my extra fragrance oil as well. Those candles look and smell great when I bring them out of the closet in August or September and the oils are just fine as well. I have a man that I sell candles to and he says he takes the extra ones that he is not ready to burn and puts them in the freezer. I haven't tried that myself nor would I have enough room anyway.

I live in Texas as well. I don't know how much wax your order at a time but I usually try to order 5 at a time along with some jars, lids and fragrances. I get those from lone star. If i order that much I have them put it on a pallet and shrink wrap it. If you don't have a forklift, which most of us don't, they can use a carrier that has a lift gate that will lower it onto the ground for u and you can move it into your space by hand or sometimes find a used pallet jack that will move it for you. Alot of times those trucks have pallet jacks for and they will move it into the garage, barn, building. This really saves on freight cost as well because basically all your fragrances and smaller items ship for "free" because you are paying for pallet space and not by the pound.

Ok I am not going to get in the above part however, When I pay a booth rental fee of $900 and I have Scentsy just around the corner from me with 10 warmers going at once you better believe I am going to have something burning in my booth!!! Do I burn candles? No. That would be dangerous and also with the draft in the convention center it could get blown out any way. I have one warmer that I keep a tart going in at the front of my booth for everyone to see and smell. Customers can smell my 1 tart going in my one warmer over the Scentsy booth with 10 warmers and each full of wax. That is how I get people to buy my products when they have never heard of me. I don't have to make any claims over Scentsy. My product does it on its own. Also makes it hard for the Scentsy rep to run down my product. If any other vendor had the nerve to turn off my warmer I would be getting management involved myself. My money paid for the booth and those are my products in it. Don't like my stuff, don't come to my booth.

Definately take a warmer and put something in it. That way you can give them your card and sell them a warmer afterwards.

mmmmm. Shiner beer. That sounds pretty good right now.

That sounds like a good idea.

I love the Sea Island Grapefruit from aroma/ haven. Straight up it smells just like a cut grapefruit. I also mix it with Pineapple Mango and it is divine. Skin safe as well.

The shows I have done have been fall/holiday shows. There are an assortment of different wax melts i burn. But whenever I put out the Cinnamon Vanilla the people flock to my booth and I sell out of those. I try to be mindful of the booths around me and ask them to please tell me if there is something they don't like. I want to keep them happy so they won't complain about me to customers. Last year each morning one of the ladies from the booth next to mine would come over and pick out what she wanted to smell. I also change scents every couple of hours just so none of us get tired of particular one. But for sure Cinnamon Vanilla everytime. If it were a spring/summer scent I would definately do Butt Naked(or whatever you wanna call it). It has a strong throw but not overpowering.

Thanks for the input. Pretty much the same thoughts as myself.

I have been approached by someone who wants to sell my candles at the Flea market here in town. Do many of you do this? I have no interest myself setting up a booth there but really wanted input from others in making this decision. I know a lot of places in the country flea markets are a big deal. TBH I haven't been to one in 20 or more years. All I hear about them is that where you can buy movies on dvd while there are still in the theater and knock off brands of purses.

I just finished looking at your "stuff" and I am intrigued. I would like to try playing around with this, especially since it is summer here in Texas and this looks like something I could do in the house instead of out in the candle room where it is really hot. Do you know if there are any training materials out there I can use to learm how to do this. I have an 11 year old daughter and she would love to help with this.

We glitter our candles and wax melts. That is how people know they are mine. Not that others don't glitter sometimes but around this area when people see the glitter they know they have a chance that it is our product. Then they can turn it over and look at the bottom. For birthday cake we actually use the sprinkles that you get at the grocery store. I only use cosmetic grade glitter. Very fine and just a dash across the top. I have never had the glitter scratch my warmer nor had any complaints.

I use the intuit. I can't really remember what made me choose it. I think it was just the first one I found that I could actually us for my iphone. What I love it I can also use it on the Ipad as well. I bought a $15 stylus from the office supply store and that way people can use that to "sign" their name. I have 2 card swipers so if I am at a show and it gets busy I can have my iphone and ipad going at the same time.

I don't know if it had to do with the drought we were in last year or what but come late April early May in the part of Texas I live in there were millions, seriously, millions of moths. According to the news the eggs were laid in the fall and then they hatched this spring. Anyway we make our candles out in a large metal barn that a portion of we have closed in, insulated and even have heat and air. However in the fall when the weather was beautiful we would be working and instead of being closed in the room we would leave the door open and also open up the big garage type door so we could get fresh air. Apparently some moths got in at that time and laid eggs in the barn. Needless to say when I received a pallets of jars and wax I opened the big garage door to back up my pickup in so we could unload the supplies it looked like bats flying out of a cave at sundown. It was awful. They weren't just at our place, they were all over this part of the state. They were migrating to Mexico. They managed to get into the room we make our candles in and where my inkjet was at and got into the printer some how and the dust of there wings plus other stuff ruined the printer. I didn't even want to try to clean it out myself. I am still sweeping up months. This picture does not even depict how many there actually were.

Sounds like a plan. I really didn't want to buy a new printer last month but had no choice after the moth infestation in Texas. Good Luck.

I haven't tried printing on cardstock with mine. If you want to mail me some cardstock I can try it out for you.

I too received Lonestar Birthday cake recently for a fundraiser. Didn't really notice it being chemically but something was different. Actually made my sister sick to her stomach and I have to say while I was driving 30 miles with 500 candles in the back of my tahoe the birthday cake was the strongest and there were only 30 of them. I had 100 Bird of paradise and 100 cinnamon vanilla and the birthday cake was overpowering those. I may have to try Peak.

I too had a thread on this about a month ago. I went with the Brother HL4570CDW color laser. Have printed a couple thousand labels on it so far and they look great. All my bottom labels are black and white. All my top labels are color, some photos, some logos etc. So far I am very very happy with this printer. What I love most is the speed. I don't have to sit there and print labels for an hour any more when we get a big fundraiser or order. In 10 minutes I am done. With my old inkjet I would have already had to change ink cartridges on each color at least once. So far I haven't had to change any. I think in the long run my toner cost will be less than the ink cost.

I called them about that because I usually order glass ware by the pallet. They said just enter the order as a pick up at there location and then call them to set up shipping. LTL is the least expensive way to go for sure. You could even set up your own carrier to pick it up and pay the freight directly to the carrier. If you have your own ups account I would think it worked the same way.

We call Butt Naked California Girls on fundraisers, sells just as well either way. Hawaiin Breeze is another name for Jamaica me Crazy. Actually A good Watermelon is the Watermelon Taffy from NG

The Sea Island Grapefruit from Aroma Haven is delicious. I actually mix it with Pineapply Mango from Candlewic and tbh I just want to eat it. We are moving alot of blueberry right now. Even blueberry cobbler. As usual the Butt naked is flying of the shelf, along with Caribbean both are from NG. But as always Bird of Paradise is still #1. We did sell quiet a bit of Cinnamony Vanilla in our fundraiser.

I let them cool for several hours before I box them up. I am lucky that the room I make the candles in is air conditioned. Not as cool as my house but it is much cooler than the garage. The part of Texas I live in does not have the humidity that Florida or the rest of Texas has. you probably aren't being paranoid. You know what works for you in your climate so I wouldn't change up your process. For about the 1st hour I leave a little space between them, then I move them all together a push them down to the end of the pouring counter so I have space to make the next group of 36. The boxing up is the last thing I do and it is usually in the evening. Most of the candles were made that morning and the rest early afternoon so they have been sitting for a while. I use IGI 4630 paraffin wax so to be honest I don't know much about soy. The only time I have problems with the candles and the heat is when last summer from mid June - August it was 110 everyday and no one wanted to buy candles. When I went out there in August to pull an order for some one a couple of candles in the bottom box I could tell had overheated and turned to liquid on the top at one time. I test burned it and it was fine just not as pretty as normal. I either gave those to friends, burned them myself or sold as a discount. Of the 300 candles I had stored in there probably about 10 of them were that way. I realize now that it was because I didn't leave the air conditioner on, however it would have cost alot more to run the ac than what the 10 candles cost. This summer I plan keeping the inventory to a minimum and pray it doesn't get as hot as last year.

The incentives are a great idea!!! Just started making the 500 Saturday. Should have them finished Wednesday. Generally try to shoot for 100/day. And your right, basically go right into assembly mode. It is much easier to make 500 of just a few scents than it is to more 200 of a large assortment. It's so much more efficient to poor 100 of 1 fragrance plus i use far less paper towels because I don't have to clean up after each pour. Will usually make about 36, take a break, 36, eat lunch, 36 take a break. Then I come out and trim wicks, put the labels and lids on and box them up and put on the shelf. Hardest part is having enough room to store the ones that are made until time to load them and deliver. Before I head in for the night I fill up the melter with wax so when I come out the next morning I get started again. Sounds like a good mix of scents. Make sure you tell the coach when you deliver the candles that fall is the best time for candle fundraisers because everyone wants candles that time a year. I got lucky last spring. Every next customer I picked in the spring decided to do a fall fundraiser as well. Most of those were at least double what they were in the spring. Good Luck!!

Be careful making too many ahead of time especially since this is the first fundraiser with this group. i just had a group of 15 cheerleaders sell and they sold 500 candles. Last month I had a group of 50 sell and they only sold 75 candles. I usually start with making about a dozen of each ahead of time if it is the first time a group sales. Of course if these are fragrances that you know will move in the next couple months regardless of how many they sell go ahead and make more ahead of time. U can probably guess which ones they are going to sell the most of just based on your market. Make up to 3-4 cases each of the most popular scents and then finish the order when they turn it in. Rule of thumb for fundraisers, if the person doing the selling actually benefits personally from the proceeds they usually sell more. In other words if the track kid selling is doing that to reduce their parents out of pocket cost for travel, uniforms etc they will sell alot. Parents even take the order forms around to friends and coworkers. If the fundraiser proceeds are just going into a general pool of funds that everyone shares equally the # of candles sold will reduce dramatically. We usually do anywhere from 5-7 scents on our fundraisers. There are a core 3 scents that I tell everyone to do because I know they sell really well. I always keep about 6 cases made up of those and that way i can just make the remaining candles at the end. Of course I didn't expect to sell 12 cases of Cinnamon Vanilla this time a year on a fundraiser so I got to spend all day yesterday making that. Best of luck to you!!!

Interesting. I use Butt Naked from NG and we go through it like crazy. However I get a couple of fragrance from The Candle Makers Store but since it is only a couple I order them in at least 5 lb increments just to help with the freight. I have been looking for something else to use from them so I can order more often. This may just fix that issue. I also made some testers from them this past weekend that I will burn next week. I order from NG a couple times a month. Would love to order more often from The Candle Makers Store. Thanks for the info.