any advice on starting up a small home business?

[wanda]

Start making the candles. You will need products, first and foremost. You could take those to flea markets, or county festivals.

Also, have a website to get noticed. Join a networking site,like Twitter. Try placing ads in free classifieds.

You can also sell them on sites that specialize in handmade crafts, like Etsy.

Something that worked for me, was to give my friends free samples, and ask for their opinions of the product, as far as quality, packaging, etc. Then ask each of those friends for 3 names of someone they think might be interested in purchasing them.

Word of mouth has always been the best advertising.