How to Make Money Making Candles

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Thus began Dennis Murphy's candle making career. Armed with four miniature molds, wax, a few colors, wicks, scents and a hardback instruction book (all purchased from a local hobby shop for under $25.00), Denny started making candles in the kitchen and peddling them at flea markets. "Back then the flea market was a big craze," he recalls. "It was a new thing and really enjoyable because people were excited by the novelty of seeing and buying crafts on such a personal level. The early flea markets had a real carnival atmosphere and were fun to work."

Denny's candle business, however, was no instant success. He remembers that summer as being, " . . . nothing spectacular. I was able to make enough money to just barely live on. But it was a lot of fun."

When the flea markets closed in the fall, Dennis resigned himself to the necessary (he thought) winter's seasonal unemployment of the candle business. The next spring, however, he and his friend—brimming with confidence—formed a partnership and started making candles for the summer's coming markets. "We began the season by buying our supplies from a local hobby shop," Denny says, "but I spent a lot of time browsing, writing letters and poring over the yellow pages and advertisements. Before long we were buying wax, coloring . . . everything wholesale. For instance, we graduated from purchasing scents by the ounce to buying them by the pound that summer."

Although the new candle business was slowly growing at that point, the growth was not always easy. No sooner had Denny discovered the lower-cost sources of supply . . . than he found himself banned from the kitchen. "I admit the kitchen did resemble a disaster area once the business started rolling," Dennis says, "but the banishment was a heavy blow at the time. It meant that I had to buy my own stove and refrigerator and I wasn't sure I could stand the expense."

Luckily, old beat-up—but workable—stoves and refrigerators come very cheap and, in the long run, Denny's move from the kitchen to the basement worked out for the best. With no meal preparation or groceries sharing his facilities, he could—for the first time—work without interruption.

Not everything turned out so well that summer. "We worked from early spring into the summer and ended up in September at the Michigan State Fair. It was a sad and ugly season for sales. The flea markets were a lot of work and little money and we worked two of them a week. It's fun dealing with people but when you're constantly tired, it gets tough. What with putting in 24 hours of selling a week, plus all the labor in making the candles for those sales, it got to be too much." That fall, a discouraged Denny and friend dissolved their partnership before it could dissolve their friendship.

Throughout the last part of that summer Dennis had been toying with the idea of wholesaling candles. He decided to take the chance and, armed with a dozen samples packed neatly in the family suitcase, headed for Detroit and that city's large department stores. Once there, he didn't know who to contact. "I faked it. When I got to a store I asked for the person who dealt with gifts and candles. I then told that sales representative or merchandiser that we were a new candle business in the area and that I would like to show a particular line of candles . . . an entirely new line that we had just begun to produce. Only I knew that we was me and that the 'entirely new line' was the only candles I was making."

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