Beeswax Art Candles - OCAF

This video is representative of work that I am doing at this time. The colorful displays are from my booth at an art show - OCAF in Watkinsville, GA. Many thanks to friends, customers, volunteers and participants for making this show a successful way to end the year. All the best in 2008!

Music by The Horseflies - "Where the Rivers Flow North"

Beeswax Tapers

Getting Ready for OCAF Christmas Show

Broughton Art Show - Music Video

The Chandlery

Things are a mess in ye ole candle shop as I scurry to make candles for a show this weekend in Newborn, GA. (email me for details). I am making tapers of all sizes and colors -- always 100% pure beeswax.





Love the new non-toxic dyes. The colors are fantastic plus my eyes don't burn as I work with them.

Having fun making ornaments scented with pure essential oils. Makes the entire shop smell yummy.

2x9 Beeswax Pillar

We have been out of town. Time to gear up for a couple of fall shows and the Etsy store. More to come!

3x8 Beeswax Pillar Candle

This beautiful large purple and blue beeswax candle is listed for sale on my new Etsy account - BeeswaxArtCandles.etsy.com. I will be adding more items and getting better adept at listing real soon. My photography skills need improvement to show off the uniqueness and beauty of my candles. Who knew all the skills that a candle maker needs?!

Spider Lily

Lycoris radiata - red spider lily

These beautiful flowers impress me every fall with their color, prehistoric appearance and perseverance. They pop up in very unlikely places throughout our old homestead. The horses and dogs trample them but their leaves will appear next spring and the flowers will surprise me once again in September.

36" Beeswax Tapers

Recently finished these 4 as a special order. They are 100% Beeswax and are 36" tall. They are twisty and curvy and will burn beautifully.

Beeswax Pillar Candle

This is pure unbleached white beeswax with natural colors added. The beeswax is nearly translucent. The flame back lights the color swirls for a magical candle experience.

12" Beeswax Taper Candles

Here's a set of fun 12" Beeswax Tapers that I recently made. As I flip through the pictures quickly - it looks like their dancing.

Laila and 36" Beeswax Taper Candle

Laila (see my other blog for Laila's story) wants to know "how tall is this candle?"
It's 36" of luscious beeswax in a unique holder that Reed made. Our front door is in the background and that's only one half of the double door! No problem moving furniture in and out of this house. The doors were hand planed in 1832.
I don't have vats tall enough to accommodate making 36" candles. So this candle was made by repeatedly pouring beeswax from the top - down over the primed cotton wick, cooling between applications. After a week or so of curing, I apply color and shape - voila!
These one-of-a-kind candles look great on a stand alone table, or on the floor by the fireplace or wherever you want to make a statement.

Lit Beeswax Candles

The bright warm light of pure beeswax -- nothing else compares.

Our Booth at the Summer Shade Festival

ENJOY!

Drying Out

Our large front porch is the perfect place to spread out the tent for drying. We packed up in the rain on Sunday - most things were pretty wet. I decided that this was a good time to wash the roof and side panels. And Karla thought, "Hmmmm, I could wash too." Behind Karla you can see the old pecan grove.

Summer Shade Festival

Summer Shade Festival, Grant Park, Atlanta, GA. Saturday was quite hot. Sunday was nice with thunderstorms - always a treat. The festival is really growing with something for everyone. Music, food, shopping, children's area. We certainly appreciate our customers from last year stopping by and loved meeting lots of new friends/customers. A special thank you to Dee, Cathy and Vicki for traveling to the big city to see us. (or was it the tamales?)

The best thing about being a carnie tent dweller is the people you meet and the friends that you make. Grant Park afforded me the opportunity to hug on some of my favorite artists. It's always a great pleasure to see Mark Meyer representing his wife, Sandra Meyer's, stunning paintings and hearing how their son, Noah, has grown. Robert Jones has been on the road for several weeks with his beautiful photography. His last stop was Lexington where he took some great horse shots. William Etheridge has been busy with a new house and continues to paint. (yeah!) Katy DeMent and I share a love of beeswax. Katy is now keeping her own bees and still making her most excellent hand made papers. Eddie King, Eddie's Bottle Art, hasn't been feeling well so we exchanged several hugs. Elizabeth Zappa was pretty busy painting her "canned ham" but managed a quick "follow your bliss!" - just when I needed it. Plus we had the great pleasure of getting to know our "next door neighbor" Dave Goldman. Dave is from North Carolina and does beautiful oils on canvas well worth checking out. Please follow the artist's links to view their works - you'll be glad you did.

One more big thank you to Fernando Fernandez and his lovely wife, Sida, for purchasing a candle and taking the time to talk with us about pilons and the internet. We had such fun and learned much.

Pre-Pack for Show

Here's some of the candles just before we packed them for the festival. Karla(the cat) was a lot of help! Managed to get set up and out of Atlanta before the thunderstorms hit. The storms were preceded by lots of wind which always makes us tent dwellers nervous at a show.

Sunlit Candles

Gathered everything in one place yesterday. We'll pack for the festival today, drive to Atlanta and set up. Only supposed to be 96 degrees today. On the mantle are candle holders that Reed has made. I love the onion bottle shapes. Vicki provided valuable input - thanks, Vic.

12" Beeswax Tapers

Getting ready to set up a booth at the Summer Shade Festival at Grant Park in Atlanta this weekend. Should be hot. Beeswax has a melting point of 145 degrees so people will melt long before the candles do. It's supposed to be in the upper-90's this weekend -- a cool front! There is a lot of shade at Grant Park so hopefully we will procure some. If you are in the area stop by, good music, good food, nice art work and GORGEOUS Beeswax candles.

Works in Progress

After the pigments are applied to the candles, the beeswax is manipulated with heat, hands and other tools. Each candle is unique. Some resemble knotted tree branches, twisted and turned others are smooth and serpentine. Sometimes there is a lot of color on the candle and often the color is reduced greatly to allow the beeswax to glow through the negative space. This reduction process is what breathes life into each piece of beeswax.

Pillar Candles

A sampling of pillar candles. Some are made with white beeswax, some with yellow beeswax and some are yellow beeswax over-dipped with white beeswax. The strings and hooks are for me to hold onto while dipping into the hot wax and adding the color. The shapes are somewhat irregular and very organic. Every single candle is hand made. Therefore, I guarantee imperfection!

Candles in the Library

It's so blasted HOT outside that I am forced to work on candles in the house. This is one of our 6 fireplace mantels. Our home was built in 1832. All of the wood, floors, windows, doors etc are original. It is very beautiful and inspirational. I'm working in this room today adding pigments to the beeswax candles.

Beeswax Pigments

The pigments I use come from Germany. The colors are vibrant and the hues are flexible. It is always great fun adding a shade of beeswax (white, yellow, gold and their variations) to the pigments to see the color today. The food container safe pigments exceed even Germany's strict protocols. I have spent over a year looking for "color" that is safe for me to work with and for you to burn. I believe that I have found it. My goal is to make a unique and beautiful candle in it's most natural form.

Pillar Progress

These are beeswax pillars that I have been working on. The heat is forcing me to get up early in the morning and work under the studio porch. Even then, I can only work so long before heading to the house and air conditioning. I like the translucent effect of the white beeswax with color so I have been over dipping the yellow beeswax pillars with white beeswax. Seems to be working.

Bee's Wax Candles

Hand Dipped, beautiful and an empty canvas!

Mud Dauber!

I have been gone from the candle studio for a few days.

Those Mud Daubers move fast!!