About Me

Hello everyone! For those who don't know me allow me to introduce myself. 

My name is Ashley Garrard. I am a wife and a mother to two beautiful children. 

Back in November 2021 I decided to take a leave of absence from my over stressful job. It was severely effecting my mental health and I was already struggling with how much time my kids spent in daycare. During that time I thought about what my life could be like if I took my husband up on his offer and decided to be a stay at home mom. At least just to try it out to see if it was something I would truly even want to do long term. I was the type of person that has had a job since I was 17, so 1.5 decades later I decided to use the time away from work to fall into the lifestyle I was always curious about while I had the "free time" to experience it. Now any mother with kids, especially multiples, understand all too well how much "free time" you do NOT get =). At first it was very rewarding. My alarm wasn't going off at 4am to get ready for work. Waking up at 6:30-7am felt like an absolute DREAM COME TRUE, and not having the stress of an over demanding job midst a pandemic was a huge sigh of relief that honestly I forgot even existed. That was, until the "honeymoon phase" of become a stay at home mom wore off. 

I woke up one day and realized JUST being a stay at home mom wasn't fulfilling me in a way of earning a paycheck did. That self fulfillment of contributing to the family in a financial standpoint was something I was accustomed to and now that it wasn't a factor that I was contributing to anymore, I start to feel stuck and started to lose my sense of purpose. 

Not to mention that during this time we had to find ways to budget better than we had been. There was my income missing so we had to find ways to simplify a little better. I was thinking to myself "What is something that I spend a ridiculous amount of money on that I can DIY myself"? I started with small things around the house that I could use/find the products cheaper and create my own but it was only making small dents. I tried couponing, buying more store brands vs name brands, and cutting cost at everything I felt I could but it was still not really putting a dent into my monthly income and THEN IT HIT ME in February 2022. "Ashley, what's one thing you spent a CRAZY amount of money on in December, CANDLES". I always buy them for myself and as gifts so I figured I would teach myself how to make candles. So off I went into what I thought was just making my candles for myself and for gifts so that I could eliminate a bigger price tag than I was currently doing. 

Now I am here to say that candle making is NOT easy and I had NO idea how many variables went into making candles but I pushed through all the trial and error and one day let others try some of the products I was making because at this point I had gone nose blind to a lot of it =) 

Then the statement that shot this DIY into the next phase of my life "OMG this smells absolutely AMAZING, are you selling these?"

Royal Flame Candle Company was born in that very moment.