Alrighty then… back to showing and telling about craft show stuff! Countdown: 4 days! I’m actually ready for the show to be over so my brain can be free of thinking about what else I could make, what I need to bring, etc., etc. I made these candle tins a while back after a demonstration from my friend Jami. They are really easy to make, but quite time consuming. First, I started by purchasing the round tins from www.specialtybottle.com. In case the link doesn’t work, they are the 2oz Flat Tin Container w/cover… ID Code TNF2 for $.46 each (unless you want to purchase in bulk, then the price goes down). Many people use the round Altoid tins for this purpose, but it was cheaper for me to buy the plain tins and not have to worry about collecting Altoid tins and then covering all the markings on the tin. Next I bought votive candles in various colors and scents. PartyLite candles are supposed to be the best because they burn cleanly all the way down. However, they were a bit expensive for me to use them and still be able to make a profit. I bought votives from Michael’s and they worked just fine. The next part is the time consuming part… melting the votives into the tins. I decided to use my oven since I had so many I wanted to do and I could get several tins on a large cookie sheet. But, if you’re only doing a few you could also use a toaster oven. Take the wicks out of the votives and place approximately one votive in each tin. I found that these tins held a little less than one votive so I cut a tad off the top before I placed the votive in the tin (round Altoid tins hold 1.5 votives). Arrange the tins on a cookie sheet and place in the oven. Check in periodically to make sure the tins won’t overflow as they melt. If they looked like they might overflow, I used tongs to extract the unmelted part of the candle. Once they are completely melted, VERY carefully take the cookie sheet out of the oven. You don’t want the wax to slosh around and spill over the edge (trust me… makes a big mess and ruins the cookie sheet!). Let the wax cool just a bit and then insert the wick into the center of the tin. Once it is cooled completely, cut the wick down to size and voila… traveling candle tin! 🙂 To decorate the tops of the tins cut a circle from cardstock to fit the top cover of the tin and stamp it with whatever image you wish. Cut the same size circle from a sheet of Terrifically Tacky Tape (found here) and adhere to the top of the stamped piece you just created. Peel the back from the other side of TTT and put it into a container of microbeads. Press the microbeads into the tape and adhere to the tin using small pieces of TTT. The microbeads really give it a cool, sparkly look! You can also add ribbon around the tin, but I decided to keep these as simple as possible since I’d already spent lots of time melting the stinkin’ votives. LOL! I hope this helps some of you… I think these would make great little Christmas gifts!

I’d also like to share a little bit on the topic of display. I will share pics after the show is over, but I’ll also describe how I chose to do some things and hopefully that will spark some ideas in you as well. I’d love to hear if you have any display suggestions. When I consider display there are a few things I need to think about:

1) I want my items to look finished and professional
2) I don’t want my projects to get dirty from being handled by many fingers.

For these reasons, I wrap most of my things in cellophane. It’s inexpensive, it looks professional, and it keeps the projects from getting dirty. I always leave one out of cellophane so people can open it up, look inside, smell the scents, etc. For my cards I use cellophane card jackets that I buy from Ebay (that’s where I’ve found the best deal). Cards have been really hard for me to display in the past, so I recently invested in one of these…. a spinning greeting card rack. I got the floor rack instead of countertop so I could save more space on my table. I also try to organize the cards based on occasion (birthday, thank you, etc.). That’s all I’ve got to tell you about display today. I’ll be sure to take detailed pics on the day of the show!

And if you’re still reading… a round of applause for you! I was chatty today! 🙂