Archives: 2010 January

Most of the candle enthusiasts you will come across dream of making their own candles, but they get weighed down by the magnitude of the tasks involved in candle creation.  It’s the plethora of supplies they need to collect that’s daunting.  Producing candles at home is not easy, but with dedication and persistence, you can become an expert in no time.  Before you can begin your candle enterprise, you must study the ropes of candle crafting. New candle crafters need simple ingredients and equipment.

Once you learn the fundamentals, the rest will be easy.  If you are set on making candles right at the moment but you don’t know where to start, you can simply buy candle making kits.  These are packages that are available in nearly all hobby suppliers.  Candle supply retailers have also started offering candle making kits because of the growing fascination in the art.  Inquire around a hobby shop and you will find a collection of special kinds of candle making kits available.  The different kits will usually contain dyes, wax blocks and oils for adding fragrance.

Creating your initial set of homemade candles with these kits is simple and you don’t have to waste time looking for all the components you will require to start with.  Usually, candle crafting kits contain the most basic requirements for creating candles.  I particularly suggest starting with soy candle production kits. Soy candles are the easiest to make because the material is natural. One other wax type that has a simiilar quality is beeswax.

The first thing that you need to do when getting started with woodworking is to get some good woodworking tools. There is a variety of tools out there, depending on what you want to do. If you are interested in doing hobby craft type woodworking then you may be looking for woodworking hand tools or more traditional tool options than someone who is looking at building furniture. There are also power tools that can assist in woodworking, depending on the type of work you are doing. Following is a sampling of some of the woodworking tools available and what to look for when choosing them.

Woodworking jigs help you to keep things in place and repeat the same measurements and dimensions in all your woodworking projects. You can make your own woodworking jigs for these purposes. Jigs allow you to do all sorts of things; with a jig you can start more difficult projects that require very thin wood as you can plane the wood yourself with the right jig. You can even use jigs to invert a belt sander and use it for things that you never dreamed of.

Next up on our list of woodworking tools is the Jet 1014I Mini Lathe. This lathe keeps the solid cast iron foundation of its bigger brother, but houses it in a smaller package for easier home use. It offers an easy to use and control motor for dependable and highly adjustable speeds. Coupled with the solid base, this tool allow for great control and accuracy when working on wood. Also, the Jet has a twenty four position indexing wheel that uses a simple system. The spindle locks in well and the push pull button is located for easy use. This mini lathe is a very solid product for the serious woodworker.

I get what you mean, my wallet’s been feeling a little on the low side these days too. It’s rough out there.  REALLY tough! But I came up with a scheme the other day that just might help your small business. It was a recollection from growing up in the big city. In a very huge city.  Around Christmas my mom would take me and my siblings out to the big park for a little walk but it was too cold to stay outside for too long so we would end up at a department store.  I think it was Macy’s, I’m not sure. There, right in the store would be this huge model locomotive display.  You had to wait because there were so many kids but after a time get your turn to press the button that propelled one of the several trains to move around the setup.  Man was it a huge layout! Bigger than the apartment we lived in! As a kid you were just lost in the world of imagination while you were in front of that track.

And here’s the thing, even though my mom didn’t have very much money and always came in with the goal of never wasting a cent, by the end of the day it seemed like we without fail ended up buying some little thing, even if it was just a hot dog from one the street venders.  So here’s the thought I had: