I tend to be a homebody as I think a lot of us Makers can be. We've got stuff to make right? But I'm not a total hermit and do actually get together with friends sometimes! I did so this weekend and I had so much fun because we went to a bar...(no not that kind!). This was a Candle Bar! Well what's a Candle Bar you're asking? Well I'm going to tell you!
We went to this absolutely lovely shop located in "Old Scottsdale". If you're not local Old Scottsdale is a great area filled with tons of restaurants, fun bars (the usual kind), and LOTS of shops filled with handmade and Native art, clothing, souvenirs etc. There's also lots of history to be found as you walk through the area.
What is Light and Bark?
L&B is woman owned business where you can buy ready made soy candles or you can make your own at...the candle bar! Jenni is the owner and she's knowledgeable and helpful and funny! It's located at 7227 E 1st Ave, Scottsdale, AZ 85251 and the website is here: Light and Bark Candle Co. If you're not local, you may not be able to make your own candle but you can easily shop online!
You can probably figure out the light part of the store's name, but what's the bark part? As a dog mom (like everyone in our group was) I absolutely love the bark part which means that...well let me have Jenni tell you in her own words:
I love and support businesses that give back! Jenni volunteers with rescue dogs and has a life long love of candles so putting the two together in a business? Dream come true. Even better? Light and Bark donates a portion of its proceeds to the Maricopa County Animal Care & Control shelter
Our group was big enough to need a reservation and Jenni accommodated us with an after hours event. Individuals or smaller groups can do walk ins during normal business hours.
These are some of the pre-made candles you can buy. Jenni also offers seasonal ones. All candles are clean burning and made from soy wax. The focus of our evening was the Candle Bar where you can select your glass jar, lid, and fragrances. I thought I got a picture of the scented oils but everyone was so excited about smelling everything, I guess I didn't! There are pre-made candle samples from all of the oils you can use to make your candle so you can see (or I guess smell would be more accurate!) how your finished candle will smell. The ladies I was with were hilarious holding 2, 3 and 4 together and wafting them below our noses to test combinations.
Shown here are the different glass holders you can choose from and at the bottom, the lids you can choose from to complete your chosen look! Once you've decided on your holder and your fragrances, it's time to get busy!
Jenni had trays laid out for us with everything we'd need. The measuring cups for our oils, a mixing cup for mixing the oils into the wax, stir sticks, wicks, stickers to place the wicks, labels and every Maker knows how invaluable a tool wood clothespins are, so those we used to center our wicks once we poured our candles! You can choose wood wicks or cotton wicks, both of which are shown here. The first thing you do is "stick your wick" which means using the double sided sticker to adhere your wick to the glass holder.
Now for the mad scientist part! For the larger candles Jenni told us we should use no more than 1 oz total for our oils. So if you used more than one fragrance, you needed to make sure the total was no more than one oz. We were busy heads down pouring a little, smelling, adding another, smelling, until we were satisfied. The fragrance choices are AMAZING! Traditional things like vanilla, mint, lavender, etc. to things like flannel, worn leather, cactus sea salt, peppercorn! Truly something for everyone.
The next step was to mix the oil into the candle. Jenni brought us each our container of wax and told us how long we needed to stir the oil before pouring into the holder. Once poured:
After that, you just want to make sure your wick is centered which is where the clothes pins come in to hold your wick in place while your candles solidify. That takes a couple of hours so since none of us are night owls, we opted to pick up the next day. I mention that so that you can plan your time accordingly. Then all that's left is to name you candle if you choose to by writing it on the provided label or you can leave the label as is and it will be put on the glass holder once the candle is completely cooled.
I'll also mention that even though the oils may make your melted wax look one color, the candles all dry white.
Here's a picture of them starting to solidify.
I've toyed with making candles for a while (because I really need to get into something else right?) but now that I've done this it's a perfect solution to my Maker's itch! The small Candle Bar candles are $25 and the larger ones are $38. Pre-made candle prices vary based on style. The larger candles burn for 70 hours which is a long candle life, and because I'm nerdy like that, it comes out to $.54 per hour.
We were already talking about doing it again and Jenni is so knowledgeable about everything. There wasn't a question she couldn't answer and we're an inquisitive bunch! If you're in the area and want to do something fun, highly recommend! As always, all opinions expressed here are mine and mine alone.
