Candle Sale

I feel like I haven't posted anything in my blog forever. School has been getting crazy with the semester ending and me heading off to France in 28 days.
But it is time for a new post and this one will be about the Candle Sale the Neo-Pagan Alliance did.

First of all our group decided to do a fundraiser for us to raise some money to buy some altar supplies. We thought that making candles would be something nice, easy, and witchy. We decided on buying some votive candles and making them herbal candles.

I went and bought the candles and Amber had the herbs, so we planned a day to make them and made it a potluck and waited till that day approached. When the day came I was super excited. I got to Amber's and we ate the wonderful meal she had prepared and the snacks that myself and other members brought. It was nice to be visiting with the group off of campus and it definitely helped to bring us closer as a group.

After we got all the supplies on the table we started the candles.
What we did was set up stations where people sat at to do different tasks. We needed someone to melt the outer layers of the candles, someone to roll the candles in the herbal mix, someone to actually make the herbal mix and someone to paint the paraffin wax over the herbs.
I got the wonderful job of mixing the herbal mixes. I was super excited about this but nervous because I wanted them to be the proper herbs for each type of candle.
There were 3 different herb mixes we came up with. We made a luck candle, abundance candle, and a stress relief candle.
Amber and I used Scott Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs book. It was a great experience to have on my journey. It was my first real encounter with matching herbs for a purpose and I really enjoyed it. After preparing the mixes I handed over to Madrone for her to take a smell and see what else it needed. With the luck candle after she smelled it she said "it needs a touch of self-love" it was great. It was a very practical magick moment as she said. Loved it.
Mark took the role of melting the sides of the votive candles. To accomplish the melt on the sides we used a small hair dryer.
This is a delicate process that requires the person holding the dryer to not be to close or too far. Just the right length is needed to melt properly and then roll the herbs in the candle.
The rolling of the herbs fell to Cailtin and she did an amazing job. It was nice to see how each candle came out. I ended up helping Cailtin with rolling the candles and then she switched over to putting the paraffin wax on them with Amber.
When it comes to these candles one special thing was the intention behind them. When making them all of us had positive thoughts and set forth good intentions as we worked to create the items for our fundraiser. As long as you have good set intentions as you work things will end up right!


After we made them, I took them home with me to sit on my altar till they were going to be sold. The day finally came to have our fundraising event and I was nervous. It would be my first real public experience of having people see me with the label Neo-Pagan. I was nervous for the potential discrimination and for the laughs. But surprisingly it wasn't like that at all. Right after Caitlin and I put up our sign we had someone ask us what a neo-pagan was. Surprisingly that was a common question. We had a faculty memeber stop by and she wanted more info on the group and actually gave us her email to put her in our list serv. We also had one student give us his information. I am hoping that with more tabling next semester we will attract those hard to reach pagans as they seem like they are never reachable by flyer.
Overall we almost made all of the money back that we used to buy the candles. I learned that people need information of what our group does and stadns for. Also that on my campus there is a need for major education on earth-based spirituality. This was a positive starting point for the Neo-Pagan Alliance and there is more amazing events to come from us.
Blessed Be!