Last Saturday's Soap Class
The soap class went very well, with one minor slip-up -- the soap mold we were using decided to bust a seam and began leaking soap, so it had to be dumped back into the pot and a new mold used, which had problems as well, but we got it figured out and moved on from that disaster. We started early for a class, 9AM, which was a godsend since the day began heating up around 11. We were done by lunch and most of us went on a field trip down the street to the Blossom Trail Cafe for lunch. Now we're getting requests for more classes in soap making, incense making, and perfume making. I'm not doing any more classes until I'm moved into my house. And then once I'm set up there, I'm going to create a portable perfumer's box so it's always at the ready and I don't have to scramble anymore to collect things -- I'm going to do the same with soap and incense. These will be used for classes and demonstrations only and restocked as they are used. Living out of a suitcase for the past 10 months has taught me that having what I need at hand will save me days (months in this case) of frustration and anxiety. Being separated from my art is having a profound effect on my mental health, so I'm now sure, with unwavering certainty, that I could never stop doing what I do or I just might go crazy -- er.
I didn't get pictures of the class because I was busy teaching it. There is a slideshow on FB via the Seasons of Spirit and Curio Apothecary page. It's short and sweet, like 15 seconds, and shows the participants and a little bit of the soap-making process. Not the disaster, though. Perhaps in the future, I will hire a photographer to take snaps while we're working and make a slideshow that includes all the mishaps, and then how they were corrected and post them to a FB page or website specific to the classes I teach. I think I just created more work for myself.
I've been working on the course curriculum for the past few weeks. I've rewritten a large portion, perhaps 80%, of the new course, and nary a word on the new teacher's manual -- which looks like it might turn into a book. I am not saying I'm turning it into a book, just that there will be material in it that isn't in the course and that it will be -- crap, it'll be so much more work! I've got notes and research materials and sources and how-to information spread from one end of my desk (it's my bed, actually) to the other that has to be gathered daily and sorted through and put into a fat, bulging binder every night before I go to sleep. Then the next day, they all come out again, with additions, and I pick through it like a junker at a peddler's fair, trying to find something that will fit into a specific section's narrative.
Sometime last year or the year before I got a YouTube review for my Kyphi booklet. I remember the woman conducting the review said a little bit about how small the book was, but then expanded that commentary to include that it was, what she called, 'a can of tuna'. A can of tuna in relation to this review meant that my little booklet was packed full of information, no fluff, no airy-fairy details, just 'meat'. That's what I'm working towards with this new course. The whole thing from beginning to end, including the teacher's manual, is going to be one big can of tuna.
I didn't get pictures of the class because I was busy teaching it. There is a slideshow on FB via the Seasons of Spirit and Curio Apothecary page. It's short and sweet, like 15 seconds, and shows the participants and a little bit of the soap-making process. Not the disaster, though. Perhaps in the future, I will hire a photographer to take snaps while we're working and make a slideshow that includes all the mishaps, and then how they were corrected and post them to a FB page or website specific to the classes I teach. I think I just created more work for myself.
I've been working on the course curriculum for the past few weeks. I've rewritten a large portion, perhaps 80%, of the new course, and nary a word on the new teacher's manual -- which looks like it might turn into a book. I am not saying I'm turning it into a book, just that there will be material in it that isn't in the course and that it will be -- crap, it'll be so much more work! I've got notes and research materials and sources and how-to information spread from one end of my desk (it's my bed, actually) to the other that has to be gathered daily and sorted through and put into a fat, bulging binder every night before I go to sleep. Then the next day, they all come out again, with additions, and I pick through it like a junker at a peddler's fair, trying to find something that will fit into a specific section's narrative.
Sometime last year or the year before I got a YouTube review for my Kyphi booklet. I remember the woman conducting the review said a little bit about how small the book was, but then expanded that commentary to include that it was, what she called, 'a can of tuna'. A can of tuna in relation to this review meant that my little booklet was packed full of information, no fluff, no airy-fairy details, just 'meat'. That's what I'm working towards with this new course. The whole thing from beginning to end, including the teacher's manual, is going to be one big can of tuna.
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