Got my new oils toward the end of last week. Spent most of Friday making up some testers.  Just going through the tedious process of wick testing. It must be the most frustrating part of candle making, but also the most important. A poorly wicked candle will result in a disappointing burning experience and could also create a potential burning hazard.  Luckily, after doing this for a number of years you do get a bit of a feel for it and can normally narrow it down to 2/3 choices which isn’t too bad.

I also got some new samples to try out from a different supplier.  I chose some girly, feminine perfumy types.  I must admit I’m very impressed with the quality and they smell absolutely gorgeous in the wax. I can see them making an appearance in time for summer.

Don’t forget, if there’s a fragrance you’d like me to carry you just need to drop me a line and I’d be more than happy to accommodate.

Finally gotten round to sorting out my packaging for my votives. I used to offer them in packs of 6 and 12 but they didn’t sell very well.  So I decided to sell them in a box of 4. Got myself some nice acetate boxes courtesy of Jo at Sensory Perfection.  Trouble is, I didn’t take much notice of the box size. It’s meant to hold 4 votives.  Well, it kinda does. Trouble is where mine flare out at the top, if you put them in the right way up the tops end up overlapping. Which I guess is fine if they’re paraffin, but mine are soy and the wax is softer than paraffin so they get squished looking. It’s my own stupid fault, the boxes come in at a centimetre too small all round. So the only way I can make use of the boxes is to top and tail them.  I must admit I’m not 100% too sure about the presentation, as they would’ve looked better, in my opinion, all placed the right way up.

What does everyone else think? Would they appeal to you presented this way? Hmmm, maybe the more I look at them, the more the presentation grows on me.  Oh why am I so critical of my own work?????

So what else have I been up to?  Well, I’ve been desperately trying to get my shopping cart to be able to offer some discounts. For example, when I do craft events I like to offer my tins, which retail at £3 each, as buy 2 for £5.  Same with my tealights.  It’s not a huge discount but it does encourage people to take up the offer. So I want to do the same thing on my website.  I stalled a couple of modules that was supposed to enable me to do this but I just couldn’t get them to work properly. One of them involved adding bits of coding which even though I followed I couldn’t get to work and ended up mucking my admin panel, so that was quickly put back the way it was.

I won’t be beaten on this though.  I will persevere with this, if others can get it working I’m sure I can.  I just need to be in a technical, geeky frame of mind, which some days I’m not.  At times like this I wish I was a little bit like Worzel Gummidge! Well, he had a different head for whatever he was doing …LOL

So for now I’m waiting on some new oils I ordered especially for a prospective new customer.  Like I say on my website if you don’t see what you want fragrance wise, ask.  She did and it’s winging its way over from the US.  2-3  weeks for testing purposes and there you have it.  As they say, don’t ask, don’t get

Oh hey, guess what?  Got my first order last week through my eBay shop.  Not bad going seeing as this is the beginning of my 3rd week.  Well you know, Rome wasn’t built in a day.  Hope this will be the first of many (fingers crossed).  Nothing yet on the other crafty sites but hey ho.  Maybe I should give out a discount

Oh well, enough rambling for the moment. Got lots of ideas, just need to get my finger out

Tags: soy votives, votives

I’ve been busy giving my website a facelift. I felt that the site looked a bit stale and dated so I’ve jazzed it up a bit, as you can see from the screenshot below.

I think it gives it a more girly chic feel to it. What does everyone else think? I’m also changing my labels to reflect this new look.

I’ll probably get round to adopting a similar look for my blog, eventually …LOL. I’ve also updated some of the pictures on the site and uploaded images to my sorry looking votives in the less than perfect corner.

I’ve reopened my eBay shop on Monday, with the hope that I can drive more traffic to my site. I don’t have everything up yet, I’m sort of playing it by ear at the moment. There aren’t that many people selling handmade candles on eBay at the moment. A lot gave up when they upped the price of the basic shop, myself included. However, eBay items do feature quite heavily in the old Google search engine. I didn’t do too badly last time round. I was averaging about 2 orders a week, which I was pleased with considering the amount of candle sellers about at the time. I just need now to build my rep up again which I know is going to take some time. Let’s see how I stand in 6 months time.

I’ve also created a little brochure using Publisher as I have a few customers who don’t have access to the internet. This will enable them to keep up to date with my product range. I need to mention this somewhere on my site for any new prospective customers. I’m also going to create a newsletter. I’m thinking of maybe a quarterly one with product updates, special offers, tips and hints, etc. Maybe have 2 versions, a paper one for any mail order customers and an email version for all my online customers. I know of a few crafters who use Mail Chimp to handle their online campaigns with a degree of success, so I think I’ll have a closer look at that.

Now all I need is to find myself a car so I can start doing pamper nights and other events. My car died at the New Year  and had to be scrapped. So I’m trying to get some money saved up to buy a half decent car that’ll last me more than 6 months before conking out on me. Still, that could all change if my Lotto numbers come up tonight .

Just a quick post to let you all know that I’ve added a new category to my website. It’s called the “Less Than Perfect Corner“. Basically, I have some candles that are a little bit sorry looking. They’re stock items that have been carted across Essex to various craft fairs, pamper nights, school fetes, etc. Consequently, they’re a bit bruised and battered and I couldn’t really charge full price for them.  At the moment it’s votives, as these seem to be the more fragile. The edges along the tops are a bit squished, others are where little bits snapped off whilst removing them from their moulds. It’s just a down side to soy as it is prone to denting because the wax is softer than paraffin.

So, the votives are on sale at 75p each and once they’re gone, they’re gone. Apart from the dents, there is nothing else wrong with them. They still smell strong, maybe more so as with soy, the longer they cure, the stronger they smell. I will be scrutinising the rest of my stock and any other well travelled items will be joining them, too. I think I may have a couple of travel tin candles that are slightly dented. Any future candles that come out less than perfect will also be added.

My website is open again for business after a long Christmas/New Year break.  I’ve had plenty of time to do some serious thinking and brainstorming some ideas. Now it’s time to start putting some of them into action.

I’ve added 2 new fragrances. Eucalyptus (great for this time of year) and Fresh Orange. I’ve got also got heart shaped melts, perfect for  Valentine Days. I’ll be offering them in special Valentine Day’s fragrances, packaged in cello bags and topped of with some heart ribbon. Perfect for a setting the scene for an intimate night in with your loved one

I dunno about everybody else but I’m getting really fed up with winter. All our snow has now finally melted here and I hope that’s the last of it for this year. Roll on Springtime!!  I’m getting ready for Spring/Summer, got a couple of new scents that I’m testing at the mo and I’ve got a few more that I want to get hold off from my supplier.  I still need to sort out my packaging for my simmering granules. I’ve tried a few things but haven’t really been too pleased so I’m going to have to go back to the drawing board on those. Maybe I’m being too fussy, I don’t know ….

Well, enough for now, need to crack on with some bits and bobs

Wow!! It’s been about 5 months since I last updated my blog (very naughty of me).  So, what’s been happening in those 5 months. Well, it has certainly been eventful.  I had some personal issues which made me lose focus for a few months.  My marriage of 20 years ran into some serious trouble earlier on in the year.  Thankfully, everything has now been resolved and both hubby and I are happy again.

So, 2009 the year of the big credit crunch and recession, how has it affected everybody else.  Well, for me, web sales have been down on last year.  You may remember that I stopped selling on eBay at the start of the year and boy did that impact on my sales.  I thought that maybe more people would return to buy from my main site, nope.  Seems that people just love buying on eBay.  So I’ve decided to return to eBay for 2010.  I tried using the few new handmade crafting online sites but they didn’t generate in many sales.  Then again I didn’t really promote the sites too much.  I was trying to use them more as a marketing tool to help drive sales to my site.

2009 saw me do lots of public events – pamper nights, school fetes, fundraising events, etc.  They were all a bit hit and miss.  The most disappointing were the school fetes.  Most of the time I did make my table money back, but after petrol costs, and time, there was very little profit (if any).  Again the main idea was to get my name out there and hopefully start generating more web sales. But that didn’t really work too well. I have only had a couple of people ring me up from these events with repeat orders.

The pamper evenings started up very well and I did think that I had found a couple of good regularly attended events.  However, the last couple of months, at a time when candle sales really start to take off, mine just took a nosedive.  Whether it was because people started to get used to me being there and thought to themselves that they’d purchase next time, I really can’t say.  I guess maybe customer complacency set in.  All in all I think 2009 was just a bit of a poor year for me, as I think it was for many retailers.  Hopefully 2010 may bring some economic recovery that we can all benefit from.

2010 plans? Well, as I previously stated, I will return to sell on eBay.  I’m not too sure of the handmade craft sites. I will be reviewing them over the Christmas/New Year break. I’m going to concentrate more on generating online sales and using various methods to drive traffic to my site.  Public events will be scrutinised more closely, I think I need to be more selective in the types of events I do.  School fetes, unless they’re church schools or extremely popular schools, are very poorly attended by the parents, which is such a shame. Craft events will have to be very heavily advertised or be long established ones. The same with charity events.  It sounds harsh, but there is nothing worse than setting up and just sitting/standing at your stall for 6 hours and have very few people stop by.  I think we’ve all been there, you feel like it’s been a waste of your time, especially if you could have been getting on with some other productive aspect of your business.

So, for the moment, I’ve closed my website to orders until 15 January 2010.  This should give me enough time to sort out my stock, raw materials and pricing.  With VAT rising back to 17.5% the cost of my raw goods will increase so this will force me to review my prices.  I can’t see them going down, unfortunately.  I may be able to keep some prices the same, but I feel that on the whole they will be going up.  I will be revamping my line and my image, give it all a bit of a makeover.  Some of my fragrances will be also be renamed in the hope that they will sell better.

I am currently working on new fragrances for the coming spring. More home fragrancing items will be making an appearance during 2010 too.  Other ideas in the pipeline include wholesale orders and a regular quarterly newsletter, along with special incentives to persuade customers who order from eBay or crafty sites to re-order from my main site. I’ll also be using the power of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter more, to try to raise awareness of Cosy Candles & Aromas.

Well, that’s enough chatter for now.  I’ve got plenty of ideas and research to keep me busy over the next few weeks.  All that’s left to say is to wish everybody a very Merry Christmas. For those who don’t celebrate, enjoy the day getting together with family and friends or just chilling out.  I hope that the New Year will bring everyone good health, prosperity and happiness.

See you all in 2010!!!!!

Well, I’ve finally got a little bit of free time to let everyone know how last week’s events went.  As you all know it was quite a busy week for me.  So, how did it ally go.  Well, the Pamper Night at The Wick Community Centre on Tuesday was very promising.  I thought it was fairly busy but one of the regular therapists said it was quiet.  I’m wondering what a busy night is down there :o   I got some good vibes though, so I’ve signed up for next month’s event.

I did have a bit of a mishap though.  When I pulled up in the car park I did notice water pouring out from my car.  Didn’t really have the time to check it out as I had to set up and by the time it finished it was too damn dark to see anything.  So the next day I checked it out.  Well, the radiator resembled the Trevi fountain!!  Water was gushing everywhere.  I tried putting in some Radweld but that just didn’t work. It was too big a hole, or should I say holes.  I reckon it’s all the resurfacing work that’s being carried out all over the town at the moment.  So I had to get a new radiator and find somebody to fit it.  Unfortunately, the mechanic couldn’t get to me til after 6pm, which meant I couldn’t go to Wednesday’s event at St Peter’s .  I felt quite bad letting them down as it was to raise funds for the Ladybird Nursery at Southend Hospital.  Still, there are some things that are entirely out of your control and car breakdowns is one of them.

So Thursday I managed to get to my regular spot at South Woodham Ferrers.  I found it a bit quiet this time round, the holiday season must be starting to kick in and I think a lot of these events are going to be a bit on the quiet side for the next 6 weeks or so.  I think the extra advertising that Carla and Francine are doing is going to take a little while to kick in.  But, LJ and I always enjoy the atmosphere there as everyone is really friendly.

Saturday saw us on the playing field at Edwards Hall School.  Weather was a bit iffy.  It couldn’t quite make up it’s mind what it was going to do.  It was quite well organised event.  The field is huge so there was plenty of space between the stalls and attractions.  There was plenty for the kids to do with loads of inflatables to playon.  There was a marching band display, a dance group of different ages, a local youth football club was there handing out some tips for a new generation of David Beckhams.  The local Classic Mini Car Club popped down, as did local radio station Heart (used to be Essex FM).  I think it was a successful day for them and I managed to make my table money back, which as everyone who has ever done a stall knows, means it wasn’t  too bad a day.

So Sunday saw me in the Grand Marquee at the Essex County Hotel.  This was a Family Funday to raise money for Breast Cancer Care.  I think the organisers were expecting more people through the door.  I know that some of the stalls there didn’t make any sales, which is a shame and I feel for them as I do know how that feels.  There’s nothing worse than not covering the cost of the stall and then there is the time, petrol costs, etc.  Again, I was fortunate that I did make sales and got some enquiries too about attending other events in the future.  Networking is always an important aspect of any public event.  I know that both Annette and Liza worked extremely hard to advertise the event but sometimes these things just seem to happen.  I’m just wating to hear from them to find out how much they managed to raise for the charity.

So this week I have 2 events.  I have a last minute Pamper Night at Kingston Primary School in Benfleet tomorrow night.  Saturday sees me at Ghyllgrove Nursing Home, Basildon.  For more details just visit the upcoming events section.

TTFN!!

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