Everytime I discover a new hobby, I go out and buy as many books and supplies as I can possibly afford on the subject. Right now, the new hobby is melt and pour soapmaking, and I want everything I see. I want to spend spend spend like there is no tomorrow on all these fun new toys. Sometimes I think I get comfort knowing that I have them in the house, cuz I have yet to try the new bumblebee mold that I got a week ago last Saturday. But I still want everything.

At least I can justify this hobby as being full of gift giving potential. The turnaround on soap is way faster than knitting, and I don’t think that anyone is ready for scarves that I knit yet (I haven’t even finished last year’s scarf for me, and winter is coming!)

In other news, I finished my last course for my DTP certificate last week. Once I get my grade, I can apply for the certificate. I’m really looking forward to getting said piece of paper – it took me almost two years to finish all the courses, and I’m looking forward to the closure. That said, I plan to take three more courses next year and get the advanced certificate, but that still feels like ages away, since I don’t even have the first piece of paper yet.

Despite doing all of this, it feels like it’s never enough. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. It’s good to keep striving for more, but it’s also good to enjoy the accomplishment too. Maybe it’s just cuz I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere with this stuff. Hopefully that should change soon – I need to believe that.

the cats are getting along better now. Haven’t heard any growling in the last few days. We had a cat peeing-in-the-closet incident, that involved me doing laundry at 6am last week, so I’m glad the cats are friendlier now. I don’t think I could handle the stink of cat pee on my clothes that early in the morning again.

So the lesson of the day is: when you have a new cat, pick your clothes up off of the floor. Otherwise, someone will pee on them to show that they own the room.

A plastic mould containing 4 bars of sparkly red hemp oil soap is sitting on my table hardening right now.

Yes, I’ve decided to give melt and pour soapmaking a try. It seems to be a nice companion to aromatherapy because I can use essential oils to fragrance the soap. The inaugural batch has been tarted up with benzoin and patchouli essential oils, and tea rose fragrance oil.

Some explanations. 1) Benzoin is a thick oil that smells like a combination of vanilla and chocolate – smells as divine as it sounds. 2) The difference between essential oils and fragrance oils is that essential oils are 100% natural – extracted from the plant, and fragrance oils usually have some synthetics added, and wouldn’t be used in true aromatherapy. However, fragrance oils still smell nice and have their place in homemade cosmetics and toiletries – not least of all the fact that tea rose fragrance oil is much, much cheaper than true rose essential oil.

Once I use the soap, I will give a more detailed review.

Oh, and details on my San Francisco trip are coming – I got my picture back earlier this week and I am so pleased with them – now I just need to get the best ones on the site. There is also some huge news that I need to share soon, but I need to tell more people offline first. (it seems that more and more people I know offline are reading this site, and that’s neat.)

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada
This work by Melissa Price-Mitchell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada.
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