Looking for creative, handmade gift ideas for the holiday season? Something natural, nourishing, and memorable? This workshop will be divided into smaller groups to experience both glycerin soap-making and custom herbal tea blending.
In this interactive workshop, we will cover the basics of natural soapmaking, using earth-safe alternatives to the chemical-laden commercially produced soaps. We will discuss the basics of cold- and hot- process soapmaking including safety measures, supply lists, and explore the natural oils, butters, and fats used in soapmaking. We will then experiment with melt-and-pour glycerin soap-making. Here, participants will get to customize bars of soap with things like natural colors, dried flowers, and more. Each participant will leave having made their own creation, which will cure overnight, be gift-wrapped by our team, and be ready for pick-up the following afternoon.
Switching gears to herbal tea making, participants will join in learning the medicinal properties of some of our favorite herbs grown on the farm. We will talk in detail about each herb separately, and then practice combining leaves, petals, roots, and seeds for a lovely brew that tastes delicious and supports our bodies, minds, and spirits. Each participant will leave with a custom herbal tea blend and the knowledge to create more in the future.
Cost: $55
includes recipes, one soap, and one tea mix to bring home
Click Here to Register
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Instructors:
Katelyn Toppel, Herd Manager: Katelyn Toppel is a long-time foodie, animal lover, and Colorado native. Katelyn‘s background is in the organic food industry, where she worked on all levels of food production from service to sales to distribution for over a decade. Once she learned about the concepts of regenerative agriculture and holistic land management, she knew she wanted to get involved. Her mission became connecting people to unadulterated whole foods, straight from the source. In 2020 Katelyn left her desk job and landed at Growing Gardens (then Mountain Flower Goat Dairy) as a part-time milking hand, and was immediately hooked! Two years later, as Herd Manager at the Growing Gardens Goat Dairy, Katelyn hopes to educate the public on humane animal husbandry and land regeneration. She is passionate about teaching others about the ways that we can work successfully with animals and the land in reverent, healing, and always entertaining partnership! Outside of her work with Growing Gardens, Katelyn loves to play with food in the kitchen. You can reliably find her cooking, baking, fermenting, dehydrating, cheese-making, soap-making and otherwise preserving the harvest of the season! She loves getting outdoors, reading, and spending quality time with her partner and two sweet cats.
Lauren Festa, Greenhouse & Facilities Coordinator: Lauren grew up in the rolling hills of The Shire snacking on cherry tomatoes out of her mom’s garden. Lauren learned how to grow vegetables, flowers, and herbs from New England farmers and participated in a Level 1 Herbal Studies Program at Misty Meadows Herbal Center in New Hampshire. Since then, Lauren’s passion for plants has taken her to the deserts of Arizona and, most recently, to Colorado where she found her dream job. This is Lauren’s 3rd year as the Greenhouse and Facilities Coordinator at Growing Gardens and she is excited to bring her experience and love of living things to this community.