Tatine Candles Spotted in.......

Beautiful displays abound
What joy!

Bow Street Flowers Sommerville Ma

The Blissful Canton Ohio

Taken By The Sky

Inspired by..............
I love the changing of the seasons, I find it enchanting. I love how the sky changes, especially when a late summer sky turns to fall, it's my favorite time of year-and you can see and feel the change. I am dreaming. I am researching and developing my next product to launch in January 2010. I find Stevie Nicks incredibly inspiring to this new line. I also love the feel of the Neko Case video for Maybe Sparrow, as well as her gorgeously strong voice. I can't wait to see how the new line unfolds, what a great time to be creating it, what great inspirations are these! For me.............Dreams unwind, loves a state of mind....

Tatine candles Rustique Collection at ABC Home New York

No trip to New York is complete for me, without a visit to ABC Home. I can't believe I am a part of such a beautiful, amazing, striking and inspiring store. I feel so lucky to have my candles there. The ABC buyers come to visit me in my booth each time I do the New York show and they are all incredibly nice, kind and gracious people. I was thrilled to see my candles there amongst all the beautiful displays!
Amazing Manhattan views from the upper floors. I want to move in.

Tatine Garden + Forest Infusions at Anthropologie in Manhattan

Stepping out to dinner one night after the show in Soho, my sister and I were excited
to see my Garden + Forest Infusions candles on display at Anthropologie on West Broadway in New York. They did a great display with signage, they looked really good in there!

Tatine Garden + Forest Infusions Collection Wins Best New Packaging Award in New York

My Garden + Forest Infusions Collection wins best new packaging at the New York International Gift Show, August 2009!

tatine candles at the New York International Gift Fair August 2009

Just returned home from10 days away on the road travelling to New York City for the Gift Show. Many days and nights out in restaurants, working the show all day, convention food, miserable New York heat, cocktails, order writing, non stop working, etc. It was a successful and very, very busy show for me. We did manage to have some fun though! Driving to Cleveland on the way and visiting the Rock and Roll hall of Fame. {We found it to be lacking and very mainstream} Unlike the amazing John Lennon Exhibit we saw at the R+R Annex in Soho in New York. Really moving, really well done by Yoko Ono. Equally moving was the short rock film we saw before entering the Lennon exhibit. It made both Denile and I really choked up. The accomplishments of some of the musicians was so, so moving with music cranking. We welled up with tears! We also went and Saw It Might Get Loud in New York the night before the show opened. We set the booth and off we went to see my favorite guitar player of all time, Jimmy Page in this documentary. He deserves his own movie. A bit too Jack White and Edge heavy, and many bits of Jimmy were not included that should have been, to educate. It was still well done though and we really enjoyed it! It inspired me.

The show opened the next day and brought many new stores and contacts to my booth.


Here is my sister hard at work in the booth, which I style differently for each show. We always enjoy the set and designing of putting the booth together, with great anticipation of how things will go.

I wanted the product to speak for itself, so I designed a clean, plain, modern booth for this show. The lines were set up on old barnwood tables from the 1800's, left over from our ceiling in our loft. I had my husband attach industrial legs that come off for ease of transport to the show. The white background was perfect for the packaging to stand out. And it did. It was well received. My Le Vieux Monde collection sold out at Market, the Rustique pillars and Tapers got tons of orders and the Garden + Forest Infusions line won a best new packaging award and out sold all my lines combined. The buyers really responded to my fragrances, which I hand blend and infuse myself. They also responded to the glassware, that I had custom made to my specifications. They loved the quality and uniqueness of the glass. They loved that it wasn't just a highball glass, mass produced and filled with wax in a factory, with a sticker on it. No designer names printed all over it or blazing emblems of any sort. Plain, vintage modern was what I was after. It could fit in a cottage, in a loft or in a modern space, that's what I wanted to create. Alot of thought and care went into that line and the packaging was painstakingly thought out and designed. Sourced from FSC stock with recycled wood fibers, and letterpress printed with vegetable based inks. The packaging is the perfect holder for my garden inspired vessel. It carries a high percentage of recycled content and is made with all natural waxes. You will find no paraffin anywhere near my products. Which is my goal, beautiful scented candles in beautiful recycled packaging, entirely made by hand. My fragrance blends got alot of compliments for being different. I feel sort of funny boasting about this on the web. But I worked so incredibly hard for this and spent months upon months and hours upon hours of my time and income developing this line. I poured everything into it. It's absolute joy to have it get such recognition at this show.I got so many orders for this line, my Garden + Forest Infusions Collection, that I had to put another 4,000 of my custom glass pieces into production right away while still in New York, to meet the needs of all the buyers. Once I get the new batch of my custom glass delivered, I will be extremely busy scent blending and pouring all the candles by hand for the orders. In the meantime, I will be filling orders with the glass I have on hand and making all the other candles that were ordered at the show.
I haven't had much chance to breathe or rest this year. But it's a good thing. It's a happy feeling to see people responding to my creations in such a positive way. I am happy to be back in Chicago though and extremely happy to be home in my loft. Which I haven't seen much of this year. I only wish my husband was here too, he is on tour with his band and I haven't seen him in two weeks. But my kitty Lester {named after Leicester Square in London} is happy to see me too. I have hardly been home this year to hang out with him!

It is all worth it though, but I must figure out a balance to all the work I have in front of me and future work that is to come. All my products remain 100% hand made, by me, and I intend to keep it all in house. The balance is in finding a day off, and not working 12 hour days 7 days a week, which I have done this entire year.
I am also busy creating a new product that will launch at the New York show in Jan 2010. It's so exciting to create and develop new products! I love seeing what is inside my head turn into a viable, beautiful product. I am filled with excitement over it due to the great response in New York. For now though, I am tired, we drove 13 hours straight to get back to Chicago {we were really dying to get home and chill and be out of hotels!}-- I want to relax in the loft with a magazine, finish Patty Boyd's book "Wonderful Tonight". I'm going to have a glass of champagne with my sister and watch this stunning live bootleg dvd of the Led Zeppelin at Earls Court in London. Oh to be home, I love it! I'm so tired, but oh so happy to be home........................

Off to the New York International Gift Fair

Tomorrow morning I hit the road with my sister Denile and head towards New York to show my candles at the International Gift fair.
These shows are a tremendous amount of work for vendors, so I always like to add a little enjoyment onto the trip. Mainly, some rock n roll!
Last summer we drove to the Atlanta Market and saw Robert Plant + Alison Krauss front row center, then drove through the deep south along the blues trail straight to the crossroads. What a treat that was.
This year we head for the rock n roll hall of fame, then on to NY the next day through the rolling hills of Pa with great tunes under the summer sun. Friday we set and prep the booth then we go to the premier of It Might Get loud, featuring my favorite guitar player, Jimmy page! We will also be visiting the John Lennon Exhibit in Manhattan in between or hectic work load and long days at the show.
I am looking forward to our stay, the rooftop pool at our hotel in the Meat Packing district and seeing Dana from dbO Home again and having dinner with her at a quaint West Village spot talking about the business of hand made.
It will be interesting to see what transpires at this show! Full report upon my return!