Some evenings we will be sitting reading or playing scrabble and the room seems to brighten unexpectedly...sure enough one of the wicks will have curled and the candle flame shoots up . Time to trim the wick.You do this for a couple of reasons. As your candle wick burns it seems to sometimes curl causing it to burn unevenly. When the wick burns uneven your candle does too. you end up with a candle that burns quicker on one side , ending up with wax spilling down the side of the candle and pooling into the candle holder lip and often onto the floor,table whatever. Can be messy indeed. I have a few of those lovely glass pieces that sit on your candle holders and seem to collect the spilled wax in them but that sometimes causes a problem when the wax is cooled it is hard to remove them. I am constantly scraping wax from counter tops and table tops..and floors. I have found that using an offset spatula works wonders for scraping wax from tables and floors. We have found that all candles are not created equally, some are wonderful and burn slowly and the wicks seem to burn slowly with them, and others burn so quickly it is hard to believe. We got a bunch recently and we were so surprised at how quickly they burned away. In between dipping our own candles , which I might add is a forever job, we buy as many as we can at used stores such as the Salvation Army used store or Goodwill,,,Yes I have heard of Value Village but after a bit of research I found out that they are actually an American company that although they give a extremely small percentage to a charity they actually are listed on the stock exchange,,,and are not a charity at all , so I will not buy from them.
We have found many good deals at some of these discount stores and can find candles for as little as 25c each,, and all of our family know what to get us for Christmas etc,We really enjoy dipping our own candles and Ken created a lovely frame and we can dip up to 9 candles at a time ,,which makes out grandchildren very happy when they come here and can dip candles. We even make their birthday candles now ...which they love .
Oh well, as I am typing this I can see my above kitchen table candle holder brighten, I now have a lovely pool of candle wax on my table cloth..better go change it and I will talk to you soon..M
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The biggest expense of running Value Village is the salaries...pretty much all of which go to local people. Then the property taxes and utilities, again which are local.
ReplyDeleteSurplus clothing is often bundled and vacuum shrunk into packages where it is sent off shore...Africa is common. Clearly it is sold to the highest bidder. Some feel that donated clothing simply destroys any local clothing industry. Some do not. Personally I think that if they pay for a container load of old clothes, I am okay with that, but if they don't pay for something, then it becomes a give-away, and that simply destroys their self esteem as well as their local economy. Then they have no fall back at all when things go pear shaped.
I watched birds die from hunger when my uncle suddenly became too ill to keep the bird feeder full one winter. Why were those birds hanging around instead of flying south for the winter?
http://heymalawi.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/what-happens-when-value-village-cant-sell-it/
(Love your blog by the way. Looking forward to doing the medieval show come July.)