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Handmade Pumpkin Spice Scented Candles – Made with My New Candle Wax Melting Pan from Candle Shack

By Happiness & Joy, The WebNo Comments

Hello all,

I’m excited to be writing to share news of my latest creative project. This afternoon I have completed a batch of 15 handmade Pumpkin Spice scented candles as presents for Samhain. All 15 candles are spoken for, but you’ll have to wait till around Halloween to see if you’re one of the lucky people getting one.

I had the initial idea for these candles back in the end of 2016. But like most of my creative projects, lots of time passes between the idea and the completion of the project.

I bought the wax and dye from Supplies for Candles. I bought the fragrance from craftovator on ebay.

I treated myself to this brilliant candle wax melting pan from Candle Shack. If you make candles as a hobby you need this pan. I used to use a plastic jug in a pan of boiling water. This melting pan has quartered the time it takes me to make candles.

Once you have this candle wax melting pan, you’ll wonder how you ever did without it. Here are some photos of my new candle wax melting pan:

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My new candle wax melting pan from Candle Shack (1).

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You fill the melting pan with water like an iron. It holds a massive 1.5 KGS of melted wax. I had been using a plastic jug in a pan. This melting pan has quartered the time it takes me to make candles.

Here are some photos of the candles. They just need finishing off by tying a witchy charm to the jar.

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My batch of handmade Pumpkin Spiced Scented Candles.

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One of my Pumpkin Spiced Scented candles. They just need some witchy charms tying to each jar.

Blog soon,

Antony

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What’s New: Things, Candle Creation, Support & Medication

By Health, Home, LifeNo Comments

What’s new? Lots. In this blog post I’ll be telling you all about new things I’ve bought (or been treated to by others), my latest batch of homemade and handmade candles, my experience of using Bipolar UK’s eCommunity, attending my local Bipolar Support Group and dealing with a change to my medication.

Things
I’ve got quite a number of new things recently. I saved up and bought-in-bulk the following Dorothy Morrison candles and oils from The Angry Cauldron:

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Photo above is of my candle collection.

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Photo above is of my oils chest. Included are Dorothy Morrison limited edition oils and other essential oils.

My old hoover started making sounds like it was going to explode and takeout half of the town with it. So I bought a new one:

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My New Hoover bought on Amazon: VYTRONIX VTBC01 1400w Compact Cyclonic Bagless Cylinder Vacuum Cleaner HEPA Hoover

Around the same time I treated myself to three Yankee candles (large) and one Woodwick candle (large). I bought Midsummer’s Night, Turquoise Sky and Flowers in the Sun Yankee fragrances. Patchouli was the Woodwick fragrance.

My mum recently got a new sofa. She kindly gifted me her old sofa. It was really appreciated as my old sofas were knackered. To protect the leather from scratches by my cats, I bought throws and rubbed lemongrass essential oil on the sofa in places they would be tempted to scratch. Cats don’t like lemongrass essential oil or at least mine don’t. I also dug out some old cushions to match the throws.

Here are the results, a lovely sofa and chair, which are both like new:

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New sofa with brown throw and red & gold cushions.

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New sofa chair with red throw and red & gold cushion.

My birthday came and went without any real celebration. Lots of people gave me money, which I am going to save for when I go away for a night in June.

But for the May full moon I’d burned one of my Dorothy Morrison Hot Damn candles. I had a load of wax remains on my altar and then came up with an idea: What if I bought a Wax Melter and burned the remains? I saw this gorgeous Yankee Candle Wax Melter on ebay and couldn’t resist:

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This gorgeous Yankee Candle Wax Melter was what I bought with some of the money I got for my birthday. The orange wax burning is the remains of a Dorothy Morrison Hot Damn candle (purchased from The Angry Cauldron).

A good friend of mine got married yesterday. I needed a suit for her Wedding and I picked up this stylish and absolutely bargain priced suit:

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I bought this Charcoal Grey suit from ASDA for a bargain price of £50 (£35 for the jacket and £15 for the pants) for a friend’s Wedding. It looks exactly like a Next suit but was probably around one third of the price.

Candle Creation
In January I made a batch of homemade and handmade White Champagne & Strawberry candles. I couldn’t blog about them at the time because a number were reserved as gifts for people. I gave one to my mum for Mother’s Day, one to my Grandma for her 75th birthday, one to Simon and two to my friend for her Wedding. Here is a photo of one of my candles:

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My latest batch of handmade and homemade candles. They are White Champagne & Strawberry Candles in a 500ML mason jars.

I’ve completely run out of wax and fragrance. I’m hoping to do a batch of orange Pumpkin Spice candles and possibly repeat the red Hot Cinnamon candles.

Support
I’ve been accessing Bipolar UK’s eCommunity and attending my local Bipolar Support Group for the last few months.

The eCommunity is an active forum/message board where users (who can be people with bipolar or friends or relatives of someone with bipolar) can ask one another questions, share experiences and share helpful information. It’s free to use, open 24 hours and 7 days a week, and goes a long way to reduce isolation people with bipolar can experience.

I regularly check the forum and have posted there and replied to the posts of others. You can access Bipolar UK’s eCommunity here.

My local support group meets once a month. It took a lot for me to go along to a meeting, but I’m so glad I did. Nobody can understand bipolar or a mood disorder as much as someone who lives with it.

The facilitator and all participants of the group that I have met have been really friendly. I have found conversations there to be very useful and learned a lot just by listening and talking to others.

My group isn’t well attended and I think Community Mental Health Teams could do more to promote these local support groups (both in terms of posters/leaflets in waiting rooms and speaking to patients about them). These groups are free to access and go along way to reduce isolation. You can find your local Bipolar Support Group here.

Medication

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I’ve recently started on Venlafaxine (antidepressant).

I’ve been in a depressive episode since at least last November. So I’m currently in the process of cross tapering, off Mirtazapine and on to Venlafaxine (NHS). So far the side effects of Venlafaxine have been quite severe. My side effects have included:

  • Dilated (large) pupils.
  • Daily headaches.
  • Being tired but wired.
  • Waves of nausea & dizziness.
  • Decreased appetite (not always a bad side effect).
  • Huge yawns.

Apparently Venlafaxine withdrawal is very severe. So I have two hopes for this medication. One that it improves my mood. Two that it is several years before my brain develops a tolerance and I have to be weaned off it and on to something else.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Count Your Successes (no matter how small)

By Books & Authors, Friends & Family, Happiness & Joy, Inspiration, Life, ThinkingNo Comments

We should all count our successes (no matter how small) and occasionally take time to reflect and contemplate them. So here’s a list of my recent successes:

  • Watched I Love You Phillip Morris, a film about a gay serial con man and prison escapee who finds love in prison. Based on a true story, staring Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor.
  • Installed a printer/scanner/copier on an painfully slow computer running Windows Vista.
  • Found some single-piece deep silver jar lids for some mason jars. The jars will make up part of some Christmas presents, as well as be used for my next batch of candles (more information in the new year).
  • Gift tagged my homemade candles, ready for Christmas.
  • Caught up and reconnected with my family. We gathered, ate (a chicken dinner and wine), talked and laughed lots.
  • Finally caught up with my friend Sye. We all have that one friend that never fails to inspire us. For me, that’s Sye. I talked through a major problem with my idea for my next batch of candles and he solved it like that (*snaps fingers*).
  • Celebrated Samhain in style with my friends Simon & Chrys. Great food, drink, fire, music and company.
  • Come off Facebook for the beginning of the week. I made the decision to come off after seeing two major spoilers about The Walking Dead on my news feed. I’ve been amazed how much time I’ve saved by coming off Facebook and realised how much time I used to spend ‘checking’ Facebook.
  • Come up with titles for a series of blog posts with a Mental Health Focus. I’m thinking of releasing one a week (once they’re all written) on a Monday and calling it #MentalHealthMonday.
  • Shared my post 15 Lies That Depression Would Have You Believe on a number of Facebook pages. This has increased visitor traffic, but not only that, someone commented stating: ‘Thanks for posting that today, I really needed to read/hear that today, really made a lot of sense and was comforting to read (if that makes sense).’ It’s always wonderful when you write something that resonates with someone and helps them.
  • Watched series 1 and 2 of Zoo.
  • Started and finished reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.

Here’s a random upbeat cover of The Edge of Glory by Walk off the Earth & Roomie, which makes me feel good:

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Keep counting those successes,

Antony

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The Finished Product

By Friends & Family, Happiness & JoyNo Comments

Well here it is…The Finished Product. Here are photos of my homemade hot cinnamon candles that will be Christmas/Yule presents for family and friends:

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The Finished Product: My homemade candles look great.

The Finished Product: My homemade candles look great (1).

The Finished Product: Just 1 of the 22 completed (unlit).

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The Finished Product: As I have only made 22, each one is numbered.

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The Finished Product: Of course I had to light my trial jar to test the scent throw. As it happens it’s awesome and smells amazing (1).

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The Finished Product: Of course I had to light my trial jar to test the scent throw. As it happens it’s awesome and smells amazing (2).

A lot of hard work went into them. The results are spectacular, even if I do say so myself. They look great and smell amazing – both when not lit and lit.

Blog soon,

Antony

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