I’ve got a busy week coming up. Lots of events crammed into one week. Here’s a quick round-up, don’t forget that you can view my events by clicking on the upcoming events tab.

Tuesday 7 July

I will be at the popular Pamper and Gift Night at The Wick Community Centre in Wickford. This event has been running for almost 3 years but this will be my first outing. Bearing in mind this is the slow season for candles, if I do get some good vibes then I may well become a regular here. It’s on from 6.30pm – 10.00pm. Entrance £1 with a free drink.

Wednesday 8 July

A Ladies Pamper and Shopping Evening is being held at St Peter’s Church Hall, Westcliff-on-Sea. It is a fundraiser night in aid of The Ladybird Nursery at Southend Hospital. Doors open at 7.15pm till 10.00pm.

Thursday 8 July

I will be at my regular spot at Champions Manor Hall, South Woodham Ferrers. 7.30pm – 10.30pm. Entrance £2 includes raffle ticket. Both Carla and Francine have been working hard with some new advertising going out in Danbury and Burnham-on-Crouch. Could be a very busy night. Let’s hope so.

Saturday 11 July

Edwards Hall Primary School, Leigh-on-Sea are having their Summer Fayre. It’s on from 1pm – 4pm. Lots of fun for the family.

Sunday 12 July

Family Fun Day in aid of Breast Cancer Care. All pamper and gift stalls will be in the Grand Marquee, Essex County Hotel, Southend-on-Sea.

Lots of fun for all the family with bouncy castles, face painting, quad bikes and majorette display. It all kicks off at 11 am and the fun ends at 4pm.

Saturday 18 July

I will be at a Summer Fete being held at Ghyllgrove Nursing Home, Basildon. It’s an outdoor event so fingers crossed the weather holds up. Starts at 2pm and will carry on till about 4pm.

So as you can see it’s going to be a busy week. Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Find out in next week’s thrilling update …LOL.

Tags: basildon, Breast Cancer Care, Ghyllgrove, ladies pamper evening, Leigh-on-Sea, South Woodham Ferrers, Southed-on-Sea, Wickford

So, how did the last 2 events in June go for me? Well I think it’s safe to say that June is a poor month in which to be selling candles. Yep, June has ended as it started, pretty crappy to be honest. But it isn’t surprising, I mean candles are there to create a nice warm, cosy feeling in the home. Trouble is during the summer, nobody is home. Everybody is out and about going to barbecues, sitting in beer gardens and doing everything they can outside while the weather is fine. And who can blame them, especially here in Britain whereby as soon as a glimmer of sun appears, we strip our winter woolies and soak up the sun for a matter of a couple of days!! Actually as I write this we are in the middle of a lovely warm spell which looks like it’s going to continue for a while longer.

As this is my first year actively doing public events, I’m experiencing this seasonal slump at first hand. Usually, I have some web sales but these too have been few and far between this year. I’m just putting it down to the recession and that candles are deemed as a “luxury” item. Even though my prices are very reasonable (too reasonable to be honest) it is not a priority item. This has started me thinking that I really have to expand my range to other home fragrancing areas like room sprays, simmering granules and incense. It is going to mean more investment in R & D, but if I’m careful enough then I shouldn’t overstretch my small budget.

So, onto July. Well, I have a very busy week coming up soon. Lots of pamper nights and fetes. What my sales will be like, heaven knows. However, I have to swallow any losses during these summer months in order to get my name out there amongst local communites for forthcoming events. Come September they are going to be thinking about organising events for Christmas and that is a candlemakers busiest season. We normally end up working flat out attending events and replenishing our handmade stock in order to attend more events. However, in order to achieve that goal, we have to endure some losses during the height of summer. Hey, nobody said this would be easy and we all know that as small independent crafters that we have to take the rough with the smooth.

Bring it on!! Oh yeah!!

Hello peeps!! Just giving you a quick round up of how this month’s events have panned out. Well, the summer months are generally fairly slow for candle sellers and so far this has proved true. The last two pamper nights were busy in terms of footfall but it looked to me like the beauty treatment ladies fared better than the stallholders.

South Woodham Ferrers Indulgence evenings are definitely growing in popularity. The word is quickly spreading throughout the town. The following months should prove quite interesting as the organisers Carla and Francine are looking to widen their target audience by advertising within Danbury and Burnham-on-Crouch/Southminster. More people can only mean more sales for everybody involved.

Our Lady of Lourdes’ Pamper night was somewhat disappointing for stallholders. It seemed to be well attended, there were plenty of mums, but they all seemed to just be there for the treatments. Not too many browsed the stalls, which was a shame, but there you go. You can’t have everything and these days money is a bit scarce. All events though, are a bit hit and miss but then if you don’t attend you could miss a good one. And it’s also about getting your name out. Lots of business cards get taken by people organising their own events for their chosen community.

So, next week I have 2 events, hopefully they’ll be successful. I’ve then got a week off but I’ll be busy making up stock because I’ve got lots of events coming up at the beginning of July. Don’t forget that if you’re local to South Essex you can always check where I’ll be by going to the Events Diary.

Tags: Danbury, pamper nights, South Woodham Ferrers, Southminster

Just thought I’d post an update on this month’s events.  No craft fairs booked for this month only pamper nights.  That’s no problem as last month I did 3 craft fairs, so it kinda works out in the wash.  Right then, if you’re local to South Essex, grab your diaries and make a note of the following events.

11 June I will be at my regular spot at Champions Manor Hall, Hullbridge Road, South Woodham Ferrers.  This will the the 3rd Indulgence Night and it is definitely getting busier.  Word is obviously spreading throughout the community.  It’s on from 7.30pm till 10.30pm.  There are lots of mini treatments available and plenty of gift stalls to peruse.  There is a raffle and proceeds go towards Little Havens Children’s Hospice based in Thundersley.  A very worthwhile charity.

18 June there is a pamper night being held at Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School, Manchester Drive, Leigh-on-Sea.  This is on from 7-10pm.  This is their 3rd year of running it and ladies, it’s FREE entrance.

23 June I will be at Laindon Community Centre, Aston Road, Laindon for a ladies pamper night held by the Westley Heights Townswomen Guild.  This will be the 2nd year I’ve been invited and last year’s was very well attended.  It’s on from 7-10 (I think, must check up).

26 June Ladies Pamper Night at St Mary’s Church Hall, High Road, Benfleet.  This is to raise funds for the Stroke Association.  It starts at 7.30pm till 10pm.  Entrance is £3.50 (£2.50 in advance) with free glass of wine or soft drink.  There’s lots of treatments available and plenty of stalls too.

So if you’re free on any of those nights and fancy a little bit of pampering and the chance to buy some associated gifts and treats, oh and sniff my smelly candles, then I’ll see you there.

Yep, it’s official I got lost on my way to yesterday’s event at Matching.  I’d printed off the direction off the Internet. Now usually they’re quite good and everything was going well till we hit the village of Moreton. That’s when it all went wrong. Yes, it’s all very well the printed directions telling you to turn left into such and such lane and then right into somewhere else lane. Thing is when you drive down the lanes, there are no lane names so how the hell are you supposed to know where you are!!

Now, my daughter LJ accompanies me as she is part of the business, but she is really ditzy.  She admits she is useless at following directions and map reading. When she was in the Scouts, they wouldn’t give her the map reading badge as she used the compasss the wrong way round and held the map upside down!  I ask you.  So we stopped in a tiny hamlet of about 6 houses got the map out and got our bearings.  Once I found out where we were on the map then I managed to plot a new route.  Now we’ve already established that LJ is a lousy navigator so I had to stop a couple more times to ensure we were heading in the right direction.  I must admit at one point I did have Talking Head’s song “We’re On The Road To Nowhere” buzzing through my head, but once I saw a signpost to Matching Green I knew we were on the right track. Lucky one of us is good at reading maps.

Meanwhile, of course, time is getting on so I ask LJ to ring Clare, the organiser, to let her know that we will probably be late but that we will be there.  Well, could she get a signal on the mobile?  Nope, no way.  In the meantime Clare is trying to call me and just getting voicemail. Anyway, we finally get there about 20 mins before the craft fair is due to start.  Good thing it only takes us about 15-20 mins to set up.  We just finished when the first wave of people came through the door. Then my mobile rang, a signal finally.  Well, it was Clare’s voicemail message.  I could barely hear it, the reception was so poor.

So, was it worth the aggro?  Well, yes as  I did make enough in sales to cover my table cost and petrol and I got some business cards out.  Will I be getting a Sat Nav?  Well, to be honest I would only use it to get to rural villages like Matching and if it uses the same sort of signalling as a mobile phone then it’s pretty useless.  So I think I’ll just ensure I have my trusty map of Essex with me at all times.  It’s never failed me yet – we always get there eventually, if a little late.

Just thought I’d give you all an update on how the weekend’ events went. Saturday’s event in Brightlingsea was organised by Diane.  Diane is a crafter too, I’ve known her for a little while from a craft forum, so it was great to meet her in person.  She makes some marvellous mosaics under her trading name Moonbeam Mosaics.  I also met her 2 children, her 10 year old daughter has also caught the crafting bug.  She has created her own special line ‘little bag of hugs and kisses‘.  A very unique and exclusive idea, but you’ll have to click on the link to have a look.  I also finally got to meet another forum friend whom I’ve known quite a while.  Jules and her young son made the trip down along with her wonderful handmade soaps, bath bombs ,bath truffles and some other gorgeious smellies.  You can check out her wonderful creations on her website http://www.scents-ability.co.uk.  I for one will be visiting very soon to buy some more bathtime goodies.  There were other handcrafted stalls such as, jewellery, cards, knitted garments, paintings, glassware amongst others.  It was  a very well attended event.  We didn’t make many sales but LJ and I enjoyed ourselves immensly. We’re looking forward to the next event down there some time later in the year.

Sunday’s event saw us travel out into Suffolk,  to the village of Debenham, we did wonder whether we were on the right track as the road seemed to lead to nowhere.  LJ had visions of the car getting stuck in a field somewhere surrounded by cows or sheep.  She did make me laugh, but we were rewarded at the end of the lane by the beautiful venue of Crows Hall.  It was a very well organised event with some 50+ stalls.  Everything from handmade chocolate truffles to hand pressed olive oil was on offer.  Half of us were in the old barn while the other half, ouselves included, were in the small grain store.  Due to the adverse weather,  some of the outdoor events had to be housed inside.  The barn had the local High School rock band, while we had the Morris Men and a celloist.  Oooooh and the weather was horrid, it was so cold in the grain store, infact I think it was warmer outside than in.  LJ and I were freezing our bums off.  Luckily this didn’t deter the locals and by about 3pm it was heaving.  Thisis the lovely thing about these small rural communities, everybody turns out for these gatherings.  Needless to say for us it was a very profitable day.  I did wonder whether my products would be well received as I know that not everyone is into candles.  Well, enough people were impressed with my upscale candle tins, we sold over just over half of them.  Definitely worth the 3 hour round trip.

So we have a week to do a stock take and get the melters going before our next event in Matching, Essex on Bank Holiday Monday.  If you’re local why not pop over and see us and check out some other crafty people.

Tags: Brightlingsea, craft fayres, Crows Hall, Debenham, Suffolk

Right, so I’ve got a busy weekend coming up.  Tomorrow (Saturday) I’m off to sunny Brightlingsea to attend the “Truly Crafted” Craft Fair.  It’ s being held at Brightlingsea Community Association Hall.  It’s on from 10am till 4pm.  I’ve got a bit of an early start as it’s about an hour’s drive away and the A12 can be a bit busy, even early on a Saturday morning.  Fingers crossed the weather will stay fine, although I think the weathermen have predicted rain for the whole of the UK.  Maybe our little corner of Essex will be spared.  Let’s hope so.

Sunday, I’m off to the 1st Debenham Country Fayre.  The venue is the beautiful  Crows Hall.  This is a moated 16th Century Manor House and as you can see from the images below it’s going to make an appropriate setting for what will be a typical East Anglian Country Fayre.  It’s on from 1pm till 6pm and there is plenty to see and do including Suffolk Punch, Morris Men, maypole dancing, archery, live music …Yes, I think it will be an awesome day out.

Tags: Brightlingsea, Crows Hall, Debenham Country Fayre, essex, Suffolk

Just a few words on last night’s event.  It was busier than last month’s.  Word obviously had spread as there were also a few more sellers and therapies being offered.

I have definitely converted one customer to my wax melts.  She was so impressed with what she purchased last month, she came back this month and bought a shed load!!  (Thanks Kym )  She felt a bit bad that she took so much of my stock, so she is going to pre order for next month.

Y’know it’s funny how at some events, one product line will sell better than others.  A couple of months ago I attended a pamper night at a school and my tins and tealights were eagerly sought after.  The ladies who attend this indulgence event seem to go for melts.  I’m going to have to ensure I bring plenty as I have a feeling that some new customers are going to be back for more next month.

So the next South Woodham Ferrers Indulgence Evening will be on Thursday 11 June at Champions Manor Hall.  The fun starts at 7.30pm till 10.30pm.  Hope to see some of you there.

Tags: gift night, indulgence evening, pamper night, South Woodham Ferrers

I’ve just finished experimenting with simmering granules and I have to say that I am very pleased with the results I’ve been having. At this moment I’ve got Baby Powder scented granules heating up in my oil burner and the kids can smell it from upstairs.

I’ve just sourced some really nice packaging for them, which I’ll be ordering in the next couple of days (need to wait for cheques to clear, unfortunately) and hopefully I’ll have at least a couple of packs of each fragrance ready for next week’s craft events. Just need to sort out my labelling for them and I’ll be set to go.

I’ve seen these fly off the stands at a few events and markets I’ve been to and they weren’t handmade. Mine are double strength in fragrance so will be far better value for money. Plus they package theirs in a polybag. Mine will look a bit classier than that. Watch out for the final product pictures some time next week.

OK guys.  I’ve another date in May, blimey I’m starting to get busy.  Bank Holiday Monday 25 May 2009 I will be attending the Matching Village Fair.  This is being held at Matching Village Hall and the fun is on from 11am-4pm.  For those of you who may be wondering where on earth is Matching, it’s not too far from Harolow, Essex.  So if you’re in the area and fancy coming along it’d be great to see you.

Hey, guess what?  I’ve finally got a sale through my Folksy shop.   YAY!!!!  I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to get a sale.  Now I need sales through MISI, Coriandr, DaWanda and all the other places I’ve got my wares on sale.  Yeah, I know they’re everywhere, but hey, you never can tell where the next sale is going to come from and in these depressed times we small independent crafters have to explore every avenue.  Luckily it doesn’t cost a lot to list on these crafty sites and they don’t expire after a week or 28 days like “the other place”.  So in for a penny, in for a pound.

Oh, and talking about spreading my wares I’m going to be adding a shop area to my blog so you can buy my lovely scented goodies without leaving my blog.  How cool is that?