New soy pillar and floating candles

After what seems like forever, I have finally uploaded my new candles to my website and Felt shop. The floating candles have been in progress for quite some time. I wanted something small that could fit inside a teacup, which required a lot of testing to get the right wick. These last for 3-4 hours, which is longer than the old floating candles I was making.

I also wanted to try my hand at making soy pillars. As you may have noticed, most soy wax used is a blend designed for container candles. However there are pillar blends available, which is the wax I use for the melts. My supplier recommended blending it with a palm wax for the best results, but to me that defeated the purpose of making a soy pillar. After some testing, and a lot of tinkering, I have produced a 100% soy pillar candle that burns really well. Soy wax is different to paraffin where it needs to keep a wall of wax around it while it burns down, because if it leaks, it leaks a lot. I maybe able to conduct further testing to combat this in future candles, but in the meantime I have produced a lovely candle that glows nicely through the wall, and burns for over 50 hours.

Both the floating and pillar candles are available in rose, vanilla, frangipani, mandarin & mimosa and white tea fragrances. I hope to add some more fragrances to this range. These will be available at both the Craft Invaders market and Methven Craft Fair. If you would like a $10 discount voucher for the soy pillar candles, all you need to do is sign up to the newsletter, which you can do here. If you are already a subscriber, there is a coupon in the email sent out yesterday. Offer ends 5th August 2012.

Market update – Craft Invaders & Methven

Today I've been figuring out how to fit all my stock onto one table for next weeks Craft Invaders market. I've got used to having two tables in my outdoor gazebo setup, but I'm grateful to be inside next weekend, so happy to downsize to be warm!

The following weekend I will be out at Methven for the annual Methven Craft Fair at the Memorial Hall (the same building as the info centre). It is on the 4th & 5th August from 10am – 5pm on Saturday, and 9am – 4pm on Sunday.

I will have specials on clearance stock at both markets, but it's first in first served on discontinued items. I will also have eftpos available for the first time. It's something I've been wanting to offer for quite some time, so I finally made the leap and organised it. I will be still accepting cash too, of course!

If you can't get to either of these markets, you might like to pop down to one of my new stockists. Pepperberry at 919 Colombo Street now has a selection of candles, along with Cadeaux at Shop 2, 7 Joll Road in Havelock North, one of the new stockists from the recent Gift Fair.