We Who are Putting Mr. Clean to Shame

When Courtney and I decided to team up and start We Who Wander, I don't think we ever anticipated the amount of time we would be devoting our lives to....cleaning.  Don't get me wrong here.  Our goal is never to make an item look brand new.  One of the reasons we chose to do this is because we are pretty bonkers about old stuff.  The items we repurpose have fascinating histories, and their patinas help tell their stories.

For instance, the patina of these shutters tells a story of them being crapped on by an improbable number of pigeons for many years....such gravitas.

However, we are also committed to presenting our customers with a sanitary product (you're welcome) so the less desirable and more yucky aspects of the patina have just got to go.  As you can see from those poor shutters, a lot of the things we pick up have been sadly neglected over the years, and the first step to giving them a new life is subjecting them to a very, very thorough cleaning.

Take the shutters, for example.  I found 5 of these puppies languishing in the corner of the sort of frightening basement of a local antiques shop.  They were beautiful, a  steal money-wise, and just begging to be made into something cool and useful.  They were also a really heinous dingy green color and COVERED in dust and bird poop, which explains why they were hanging out with all the windows that were broken or adorned with unsightly 90s era stickers.  I dragged them out of there and, immune to the incredulous looks the shop owner gave me when I told her I wanted to buy them, put them in my car and set off for home.  After dry cleaning my coat (seriously, they were so dirty) and consulting with Courtney, we came up with a game plan.  We would sand them down and paint them a completely different color then convert them into organization/mail centers.  When we started to wash and sand them though, something magical happened.  Turns out that muddy green color was actually a gorgeous, vibrant green hiding under multiple coats of grime.

Oh my!  The green was so lovely we decided to just sand it lightly and have fantastic green organization centers.  It saved us a ton of time and paint and allowed us to offer a more authentic product.  A lot of elbow grease and a burlap mail pouch later and we were ready to post an item we were proud of!

Ta da! A good cleaning can totally transform an object.  It should be the first thing you do when trying to restore or repurpose a vintage items.  Not only does it make things look a heck of a lot better, it sometimes even adds sturdiness by rehydrating wood. The ideal cleaning product for an older piece will get things clean without stripping out the character, too.  For items made of wood, we love Murphy's Oil Soap, linseed or orange oils, and beeswax.

So if you find something awesome, don't be scared away by a little dirt!  Happy cleaning, everyone!

-Hannah

We Who Make Candles From Other Candles

Well folks. Things are going well for the team here at We Who Wander. And by the team I mean myself (Courtney), Hannah, and our significant others who were quite helpful this weekend in our latest crafting endeavor. We've reached four sales in our first two weeks, and have a custom order in the works that might actually enable us to break even from our initial investment. We even got our first positive feedback from a customer today- which may or may not have elicited a very emotional response from both Hannah and myself.

Anyhow. This past weekend the four of us embarked upon the journey of recycling some of the alarming supply of pillar candles that were left over from my wedding. We decided the best way to give them new life would be to break them down, melt them, and make new candles out of the wax. Of course, we had never actually done this before. Our first dilemma was how to break down the candles so they could be melted in our makeshift tin-can double boiler system. Initially we thought we could shave them down using knives and cheese graters.

Well. No. After a significant amount of time wasted attempting to shave down candles, we realized we would have to charge $100 a candle to cover the labor involved in our candle making adventure. This clearly wasn't going to work. (Below you can see my husband Matthew and I diligently shaving away)

We were quite disheartened at this point in time. We thought about lighting the candles and just pouring off the wax as it melted. This was unfortunately an even worse idea than our initial plan. And then it his us. Well. It hit Hannah's boyfriend Brent. What if we just smashed the candles and broke them into smaller pieces? Oh. Right.

So we sent Brent outside with a plastic bag full of candles and a hammer. He returned victoriously.

SUCCESS!

Next we used needle nose pliers to mangle some tin cans so they would have spouts, packed in the wax chunks, and placed them in a pot with two inches or so of boiling water.

The melting process was a little terrifying at first, but eventually we got the hang of it. We kept the burner on medium heat so it would go nice and slowly, and as soon as the wax started to liquefy we would stir continuously to ensure that everything was heating evenly. While it was melting, we dipped our wicks into the liquid wax to coat them and after they dried we glued them into the assorted vessels we had collected. As soon as all the wax chunks melted down and the liquid was totally smooth, we poured it into the vessels, careful not to let the wick fall into the pool of burning death. Other than a few minor mishaps, this process went smoothly. Once the containers were full, we fashioned a makeshift structure to keep the wick centered and as straight as possible.

In the end we created seven beautiful candles and were quite proud of ourselves. You can see the fruit of our labor listed in our shop- two sets of champagne flute candles and one set of vintage mugs. Number seven sadly was a casualty of crafting. He will be staying in my home where no one will judge him for his lumpy exterior.

And that is the story of how we made candles from other candles :) That's all for now,

-Courtney

We Who Wonder...

...if this will work. 

Well. Our little Etsy shop is 6 days old. Those 6 days have been filled with obsessive compulsive behavior such as photographing the items over and over, tweaking titles descriptions and keywords, and refreshing the shop stats over and over and over and... 

Perhaps the most embarrassing behavior has been the Google Analytics Real Time lurking. It turns out, you can see who is looking at your website at any given time. You can also see exactly what they're looking at, where they came from, and where in the world they are. I am officially a crazy stalker.

The thing is, I really want this to work! We made our first sale within 24 hours of listing our items... and the feeling was so satisfying. Now I am eagerly awaiting the second, third, and hundredth sales for our little shop. 

The next step for us at We Who Wander is building up our inventory. We've been told that to succeed on Etsy you really need to fill up your shop with awesomeness. That's what we're trying to do. In the works are some pretty fun items such as a suitcase storage bench, burlap placemats, and a jewelry display piece. 

We hope to use this blog as a place to share our creative triumphs and failures, as well as chronicling the harrowing journey of a start-up Etsy seller. We hope you enjoy following along with us on this new adventure!

-Courtney