Oh my.. day two arrived and went so fast. The day began with getting the pieces out of the kiln, and then making sure they are ready for glazing. The color choices are many and I decided to keep the color palette neutral in white, grey colors

The glaze is added to the pieces by simply dunking them under the surface, swirl them around and letting the access liquid drip off. They dry up very fast and you can touch the peices after a few seconds.

Its very important to remove any glaze from the buttoms of each item to avoid the glaze from burning into the plates they rest on in the oven. If not they simply glue themselves to the buttom and its impossible to get them off whole

In just two days I have managed to fall in love with the beautiful art form and I will surely continue to learn more and go for more classes at “finurlig keramik”. The instructor Thora is very professional and very patient with all the questions 😂

She also has ties to Tanzania which I also have and I meet very few people who have actually been so it was just so nice to talk to her about my experiences there and hear about hers

Good night to you all 💕

Making candles to go with all the jesmonite design pieces is just a match made in heaving right?

So I ventured into the world of candle making. Here are my comments after 2 months of testing.

The Mix

Making candles is sooo soothing and one should think that its just about getting some paraffin or stearin and then wuup - Candles done and ready for the shop.

I have watched plenty of youtube videos and googled anything related to candle making, and it is just such a huge information overload, that I don't even know where to start.

So I decided to just test it out, try something and see how it goes.

The basics are:

Candle ingredients are very different.

Soy pebbles are great for candle jars and glass containers, but they don't work well with candle molds.

So I tried and tested a candle mold with a soy base with a 10-20% paraffin blend and even though it looked really great fresh out of the mold, it did not do well once it was burning. it only took about an hour and it was one hot mess all over my living room table as soy has a very low melting temperature and thats the reason why its recommended only for jars and glasses. I found out the hard way. Lesson learned.

Totally not a success!!

So I had to test some more and change up the blend.

Doing a 100% parafin mixture, the candle tends to just look very "plasticky" and store bought, and thats not a look I want in my shop. Also a pure parafin blend tends to give a lot of sink holes as they are called. Simply put - ones it cools down, holes form in the middle of the mold and you have to refill it and it can leave marks that make the candles less attractive and the colors seem to not match after a second pour.

So I settled on a 80% paraffin - 20% soy blend and it works really well. Sink holes are at a minimum and the texture is just great, so I'm gonna go for that for now, and I will also start experimenting with stearin as a blending option too.

When heating up the pebbles, there are sooo many rules depending on where you search for information, but I figured out that you heat it up slowly until melted, add color, stir, let it cool a bit before pouring. I have no idea what the temperature is, but it cannot get to boiling temperature as it ruins the crystals and makes the whole process of candle making impossible to predict.

The colors

There are a lot of different color options to chose from, but they can be quite expensive and hard to come by.

In general colors for candle making are solid and come in small pebbles, sticks, grinded or squares like chocolate. There are two main issues when it comes to coloring - Its expensive and difficult to re-create once you have a color you like.

So I went with a gut feeling and for some reason, a hunch I had from my school years - Crayons... they are wax based, come in many colors and are available in most bookstores, grocery stores etc. And the best part is, they are very inexpensive!

Its quite easy to measure the quantity of a crayon, 0,5 cm for light colors and maybe 2 cm for bright colors for a batch of 400 ml candle mix - that is quite inexpensive. Only downside is that it takes a while to dissolve, but for now I can handle that :-)

Molds and makes

So about 40-50 test candles later and purchasing molds like this one I was finally ready to make my first candles for the shop.

I wanted to start out with light color that are more of a pastel rather than bright colors, as they would work well with my jesmonite items that I have made for the fair in my hometown, and they turned out beautiful.

I simply love the cozyness it oozes out and I can't wait to make more.

For now I ran out of stock and sold all of fair, so I guess it was a huge success. Yay

Next stop is scented candles and new mixing methods with stearin and new Origami molds.

Lots of love and creative thoughts Sys

I am in full swing prepping for the different markets and fairs that are coming up in the fall here in DK and I can't seem to find time enough in the 24 hours we have per day, to get it all done.

I am at the moment creating candles to go with the different trays and candle holders, and I am having a lot of fun with that, which for me is the main goal here.

The process of making candles is a bit longer than jesmonite as it takes about 10-12 hours before I can de-mold the candles without breaking them, and I had to experiment quite a lot with the texture of parafin and soy to get the right consistancy and I learned new words like sink holes and craters ;-)

So below is a picture of the bubble candle batch that I am currently making.

They are just too lovely right? ;-)

Once they have cooled down they look like this:
Cute right?

Now I had to watch quite a lot of candle making videos and get a hold of molds for candles as well so it is not quite a creap start to get into candle making, but I am sure it is worth it, when I go to the fair and the market. I really hope people will like them together with the Jesmonite Items.

I got some new jesmonite molds as well, and they arrived just in time so I would not have to pay fines and extra import taxes, as all european countries now have seperate rules from the rest of the world, so both Brexit and that new rule for internal puchases outside EU, has give the small business owners a right hook straight to the face, as everything is being taxed differently now.

Since I have to make changes to the webshop to comply with these new rules, i decided to make some changes to the overall design, and to add MobilePay to it, as I can see in the log, that some people skip my shop just when it is time to pay for the items, and I am confident that making it possible to pay with your phone instead of only credit cards, will increase the orders placed in the shop, which I would love like any other small business owner ;-)

I am going to a huge fair in Fredericia in Denmark called Creative days (Kreative dage) in october and it runs over 3 days, with onsite working stations to show off the skills that the handcrafters have. I really hope it will be a success and that we can have more people in Denmark know about Jesmonite, as it is relatively unknown here.

Wish me luck with the process of making enough items, to showcase the whole thing and add attention to my small business.

Love

S.