Shop closure, beer candles

Scanning pages from my favourite vintage cake catalogue. Beer! Cheese! Oven gloves!

Late Sunday evening I picked up my phone, typed in my shop’s url and waited for it to load. This has become a little tick of mine, incessantly checking up on my shop. I don’t really know what I’m even checking it for. After a moment the page loaded. Except it was not my shop but a blank screen with a little snowman on it. Page Not Found.

It was my fault, of course. I’d chosen not to renew my contract with Bigcartel — where I’ve hosted Candlestick for two years — and thought I’d given myself enough time between old contract and new contract elsewhere to *takes a deep breath* learn a new backend, design and build a new shop, and photograph over a hundred new products. All in one smooth transition with no downtime.

Unfortunately this has coincided with half term and my small child is off school which, I’m sure we can all agree, is stunning timing. So for the time being I have no shop. Just a snowman.

I’m about 15% into the new build. As well as the shop there will also be interviews and recipes. Yes! It’s going to be great. I’ve photographed 20% of the million new items. But I think it’s looking good, if I do say so myself!

Not forgetting all the many, many new cookbooks I’ve acquired. There’s also a new section which I’ve enjoyed buying for and photographing immensely 🚬

In the meantime there’s the Candlestick eBay. And for everything else there is this silly newsletter

Wilton Yearbooks

Wilton, the American cake decorating company, used¹ to release an annual ‘yearbook’ called — surprise — Cake Decorating. I don’t know how but I’ve become obsessed with collecting them. I’ve picked one at random — the 2001 yearbook — to share with you, specifically the cake candle sets. It’s a treat!

A lot to take in. Cigars? Wine bottles? How about celebrating the coach potato in your life with candle potato chips, beer, television set remote control… all their faves are here 😉

Tools!

I love the little cheese candle!!

Beer!!²

I honestly could’ve scanned every page

The oven glove is, in my opinion, extremely chic

Mini mascara!

I was going to include a recipe for a flip phone cake (yes, really), another gem from the 2001 Wilton yearbook, but Substack is telling me I’m nearing the email length limit. I’ll save it for next time.

1. Or maybe they still do?

2. I’ve managed to find an unopened pack of these. Coming soon to the shop…