iPod Pictures of Candles

I want to upload these pictures of my candles that I have on my iPod....

Making Candles

"My obvious conclusion was, Fuck Etsy! I'll make this shit myself!" 

-- Joe Valeri 

One night I lay in bed shopping online -- browsing I should say. Someone had posted a link on Facebook to their friend's Etsy site, and I had started browsing around for various things. Eventually I concluded that I wanted to buy something local, something affordable, something practical. Maybe candles... 

My first ever candle - with homemade hemp wick

I clicked around for awhile, checking the prices of various candles and vendors, until I saw one person selling these mismatched, unmelted "candles" made in salsa jars. She had merely collected all the leftover chunks of wax from the other candles she made and tossed the chunks into her husband's used salsa jars. Each "candle" had several chunks -- of different colors and scents -- piled into the jar, with a wick in the middle. But then she didn't even re-melt them. It would be like dropping a bunch of crayons into a juice glass, sticking a wick in it, and selling it online for 6 bucks (plus shipping :O).

My obvious conclusion was, Fuck Etsy! I'll make this shit myself! 

... Candle making ensued ... 

I really enjoyed it, and now I have a dozen candles around the house. I can burn candles constantly and it's basically free. Any color, any scent, any size ... it's very cool -- definitely a hobby I will return to. (Click here to see a photo essay of my first candle.)

My first set of candles in progress - I even decoupaged the glass on some of them.

I'll do more candle making posts to show all the pictures I have. I think I should do one post with all the supplies and instructions for how to make them as a reminder to myself. And then another post with some of the finished the products -- although several of them have been burned by now.

Add JoeSoCrafty?

"In the interest of interdisciplinary inspiration, to cultivate creative crossbreeding ... the blogs will be combined!" -- Joe Valeri

When I started doing this blog (and a couple others) the idea was to create different blogs to document different hobbies, projects, phases, etc. I haven't yet created a "Crafting" blog, but I've been meaning to -- and I need to decide whether to create it separately or fold it into the mix here. My thinking has evolved a little bit, and I'm not so sure I want to create a new one. I can see reasons to keep them separate -- and I can see reasons to combine them.

I already added the gardening stuff into this one. Originally this was called JoeSoBakery, and it was going to be just about baking. But I realized that was retarded because I only bake something a couple times a year. I cook fairly often -- both trying new recipes and mastering those I already know -- so I ended up expanding to include all cooking in general. 

I have a separate one for my radio show podcast and DJ mixes. But what should I do with crafting?  I feel like the radio show and the DJ mixes are their own separate thing -- they're a product, almost a brand name, so to speak. So I think it makes sense to package all of that together. It's still "JoeSoHeady," but the weblog remains strictly dedicated to the radio show and DJing. If you want to listen to the show or check a set list you won't have to scroll through posts about planting broccoli or sewing pajama pants out of flannel sheets.

Right, so that brings me back to the crafting.

When I don't have a lot to do (e.g., single and lovin' it) I tend to do more of these hobbies and projects. A couple years ago I did a few sewing projects. Recently I went through a candle making phase. Cooking -- that's an ongoing thing -- but getting into cooking -- that's something I could say goes in phases. So all these things fill the same kind of role -- hobbies, interesting things to do, skills to learn, serious yet fun, practical but whimsical, etc.

I probably do anywhere from 1 or 2 up to 10 or 12 crafty projects over a year. Sometimes I'll stick with the same craft for a while and do several projects, and sometimes I'll just kind of check it out and move on. So it doesn't make sense to have separate blogs for each craft. I would only have 1 or 2 entries each. 

It does make sense to keep crafting separate from cooking just because they are clearly two different things -- but they do fill a similar role for me. It makes sense to combine them because there aren't going to be a ton of posts to either one. If I only do a handful of cooking blog entries and 2 or 3 craft projects over the course of a year, those would both be pretty weak blogs. 

But what about the practical purpose of making the blog in the first place? I mean, who cares if the blog is "weak" because it only has 3 entries over a year and a half period? If the point is to have a place for me to document what I'm doing -- for all the normal, general reasons one would document their hobbies -- then why not keep them separate, for organizational purposes? 

On the other hand ... what about some sort of cross-craft creative inspiration that might occur by combining them together? Crafting projects inspired by work in the garden -- recipes discussed while working on the sewing machine -- furniture ideas hatched over tight quarters in a hot kitchen....

I think that paragraph is the winner! In the interest of interdisciplinary inspiration, to cultivate creative crossbreeding ... the blogs will be combined!

With that in mind ... introducing JoeSoCrafting to the JoeSoCookbook network! Should I start thinking about changing the name again? I do kind of like cookbook still because "cookbook" could be used as a general term -- a collection of ideas for how to make things -- whether you're making a  meal, a dessert, a candle or a pair of pajama pants!

JoeSoCookbook ... a collection of things I've made? 

JoeSoCookbook ... recipes for hobbies? 

JoeSoCookbook ... what's cookin in the mind of Joe?

I'll keep working on the tag line....