Saturday December 19, 2009

the gift of making & sharing

I love collecting new skills. Here’s my latest: soap making. I just finished taking a course in soap & lotion making at the Open Center with LaShonda Tyree, aka ‘The Soap Coach.’ Over 5 courses, LaShonda taught a class of about 30 the art of handcrafting lotion, bath products, cold-processed and melt & pour soap. The night of the melt & pour class I was so inspired that I tweeted a message asking if anyone wanted to join me in a soap-making party. I immediately got a response from Kate (The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking) and Adriana (What I Made for Dinner).

After a series of emails back & forth to figure out logistics – the party of 15 soapmakers was on.

What I most loved about the whole thing – aside from having a great time with friends new & old – is that one person (me) was able to share a simple skill with several others who will then go on to teach their friends and teach their friends and on and on. Plus we all made such diverse & creative soaps that we can share as gifts this holiday season.

To find out how it went down, check out Kate’s post.

For great tweets on creating, eating, and general merriment, follow Kate @hipgirls & Adriana @AdrianaV

And here are some of my own creations from the night:

A sheet of hibiscus-calendula-grapefruit soap

Using a cookie cutter to cut out soaps

Pretty!

Categories: art/craft beauty/hygiene blog holidays Tags:

8 comments:

1. On December 19th, 2009 at 5.49 pm Adriana says:

   Thanks for sharing your soap-making know-how with us. Those hibiscus-calendula grapefruit soaps are gorgeous!

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2. On December 20th, 2009 at 11.55 am Kate says:

   I’m so glad we did this; thanks for being our sudsy leader! We realized that little soaps make fab hostess gifts, too!

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3. On December 20th, 2009 at 1.01 pm Liz says:

   Me, too! I’ll be giving mine as parting gifts on Xmas Eve.

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4. On December 29th, 2009 at 9.50 pm my upcycled, diy, homemade holidays says:

   [...] recently learned the art of soap & lotion making and wanted to show off my new skills to my family & friends. So I made a couple of batches of [...]

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5. On January 5th, 2010 at 3.11 pm learnings for a new year says:

   [...] the gift of making & sharing [...]

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6. On January 9th, 2010 at 1.17 am La Shonda Tyree says:

   I am so proud of you Liz! Look at you sharing your knowledge with others! I love it! Didn’t I tell you that soapmaking is contagious? I think I did leave that out of the class notes.

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7. On January 9th, 2010 at 10.22 am Liz says:

   Thanks, La Shonda! I owe it all to you.
   Thank you for sharing your vast knowledge of soap & lotion making. It was a wonderful learning experience!

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8. On January 9th, 2010 at 6.59 pm Handmade Soap Coach » Blog Features Melt & Pour Soap » Soap Fever says:

   [...] time I was doing a google search on my name and came across a blog post from one of my students, Liz Neves, who blogged about her recent learning experience and how after taking the melt and pour soapmaking [...]

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