A well-planned candy making setup makes tempering and dipping much more efficient and easy. I'll describe the setup and technique for right-handers, reverse it if you're left-handed.
Preparing for candymaking is more than simply clearing a space on your kitchen counter and assembling the necessary ingredients and tools. This is adequate for simple one-step recipes, but any candy that requires multiple steps benefits from what I call my "battle station" approach. I clear the counters in my kitchen and set up a well-defined area for each step.
If you are mixing up a batch of peanut butter balls with your child, you can get away with pushing aside the dirty dishes, assembling your ingredients and tools, and simply mixing them up.
"Battle stations" are crucial if you are making truffles for the first time, for instance, or even if you are simply dipping strawberries in chocolate. First you need to wash your strawberries; have them at station #1 on your far left. This is where you place your ganache balls, peanut butter balls, or whatever you are dipping. Station #2 will be an electric frying pan, right in front of you, and station #3 is adequate space for the drying candies, wax paper-lined trays.
Once the chocolate is melted and cooled enough to touch, it must be tempered, which is done with your right hand. This insures that the cocoa, sugar, and cocoa butter are blended, not separated. Think about what happens when you melt butter and then re-harden it; it separates, correct? It is the same with chocolate.
To temper your chocolate, transfer three handfuls into the cold frying pan. With your fingers together, cup your hand slightly and swirl the chocolate in an “S” motion until it feels cool. The correct temperature is about 85º F. At this point it is tempered and ready to start dipping. Test the temper of the chocolate by touching a chocolate-covered finger to a waxed paper-lined tray to leave a dot. If this dot hardens within three minutes, the chocolate is ready for coating centers, if not, keep moving it around and test again in a few minutes. Couverture is quality chocolate especially for dipping. Nothing needs to be added at this stage to make your chocolate candy perfect - no oil or butter, no wax, nothing.
Take a center and drop it into the chocolate, flip it over with your right hand, flip it onto the wax paper to dry. Once you get the hang of it, you'll do this quickly. It's a bit messy, which is why you only put one hand into the chocolate. If you need to do anything else such as turn on the frying pan or ?, you will have a clean hand to do it.
In between dips, stir the chocolate. When you've used about 3/4 of the chocolate, add two more handfuls, blend it all, and temper it as you did at first. If the chocolate becomes too stiff, turn on the electric frying pan for at most two minutes, and keep stirring all the while.
If you've timed your tempering just right, your finished chocolates will have a nice shiny surface. Whether or not you've tempered the chocolate correctly, it will taste divine. Practice makes perfect.
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Preparing for candymaking is more than simply clearing a space on your kitchen counter and assembling the necessary ingredients and tools. This is adequate for simple one-step recipes, but any candy that requires multiple steps benefits from what I call my "battle station" approach. I clear the counters in my kitchen and set up a well-defined area for each step. 
