When Jennifer Sandifer’s 18-year-old stepson, Theron, moved out of the family home in Morton, his bedroom didn’t stay empty for long. These days, it’s the workshop for Wick & Wraith Candle Co., the cottage business the 39-year-old has built one wax pour at a time. Fall is its time to shine. Then again, so are the winter holidays, and spring’s floral season, and just about every month in between. With Jennifer behind the scenes, her creations light and delight with every turn of the calendar page.
These aren’t basic cylinders of wax bearing a wick. Picture a coffin-shaped wooden bowl sprouting wax succulents, a strutting Sasquatch bearing evergreen trees, or a smiling bee jar crowned with a sunshine-yellow bouquet of wax roses. The name, part candle and part ghost, suits a maker whose favorite holiday is Halloween.
An Offhand Comment and a Gift of Supplies
It all started with a passing remark to friend Veronica LaGra, also of Morton. The two were working on another venture together, Nose to Toes Tallow Company. Jennifer noticed Veronica had candle-making supplies and mentioned she’d like to try the hobby someday. That led to a gift of supplies, which led to Wick & Wraith.
Jennifer’s husband, Charles Sandifer, has lent his business know-how to both Wick & Wraith and Nose to Toes. Charles is a business consultant with Back in the Black, whose work entails creating inventory systems, bookkeeping and the like.
For Wick & Wraith, first came what Jennifer calls “a boatload of research,” on everything from types of wax to types of fragrances. With four dogs in the Sandifer household, one concern topped the list.
“It’s very important for me that they’re safe for pets, so I was doing a lot of research on pet-safe materials,” she says.
Jennifer practiced with the supplies Veronica gave her, watched plenty of tutorial videos and, in her words, “found my niche in what I really enjoy doing.”
“I’m Definitely Addicted”
The more she worked, the more candle-making became her happy place.
“I could sort of escape for a little while,” Jennifer says. “I find it very soothing.”
She’d never had a hobby that was truly her own, she adds, so this is “fun new territory.”
Her supply stash has grown to match. “I’m definitely addicted,” she says with a laugh. “I have loads of silicone molds, and then I also make my own molds.”
She initially bought her silicone molds from internet sites such as Etsy. “Then I learned how to do it myself,” Jennifer says. “And I work with Maddie Fincannon here in town, and she does all my 3D printing. If I’m going to make a mold, she’ll make the 3D print so that I can pour the silicone around it. She also makes a lot of my vases for the flower bouquets.”
At first, her favorites were the large dough-bowl candles filled with intricately designed wax flowers and other wax elements. And while she still produces flowers upon flowers, as of late, the spooky stuff has taken over.
“I love Halloween,” Jennifer says with a smile. Bats, skulls and ghosts now fill her molds. “That’s sort of my favorite, and that’s what I’ve been focusing on a little more lately.”
Jennifer Makes Her Particular Magic in Batches
“It probably takes two, three days,” Jennifer says. “I’m not actively working on it for all three days or anything, but, you know, first you must pour and mix your base wax, and then you have to pour your silicone molds, and pray they survive the unmolding. And then you can assemble them later. It’s a staged process that’s spread over a few days, just depending on what it is.”
Flower bouquets take the most assembling, she explains, and because she usually mixes only three or four colors at a time, the number of colors in a bouquet affects the timeline. Depending on the bowl type, a finished batch yields five to 10 bowls.
When Jennifer first started Wick & Wraith, her workspace wasn’t in the house. “I was actually making them in the garage at first, but the weather is too inconsistent,” she says. That’s how Theron’s old room became the workshop. Or, as Jennifer puts it with a grin: “I hijacked his room.”
Where to Find Wick & Wraith
In Morton, Jennifer’s candles are sold at Town & Country Flowers and Main Avenue Coffee House & Bakery. Northwest Home Center also carries her jar candles during the holidays.
The Morton Saturday Market is her home base during the summer months. She’s also president of Friends of Morton Parks, the group that hosts the Saturday Market as well as the holiday and spring bazaars, so it’s a given that Wick & Wraith is a constant at those events. Beyond Morton, she also sells at special-event markets such as the Tacoma Haunted Market and others in Portland and Seattle.
“That was a few years ago,” Jennifer says, recalling the first gift of supplies, “and here we are.”
