When I had children, I promised myself I would never turn in to your typical "soccer mom". I swore I would stay hip, maybe even borderline cool. This meant no weekend soccer games, no mini van, no frumpy clothes and certainly NO crafting. Crafters have always scared me. You see, it begins innocently enough...one year you decide to make handmade Christmas cards from Martha Stewart Magazine, next thing you'll find yourself knitting a scarf for your son, then, before you know it, you'll have a room specifically set up for scrapbooking and soon you'll be inviting friends over for a pot luck crocheting pow wow. Whew - SO. NOT. COOL. But then it happened - I walked right into a trap. What looked like a super cool indie retail store was really a crafters paradise in disguise!!
BAM! On a typical shopping excursion I found myself standing smack in the middle of The Urban Craft Center in Santa Monica and you know what? I COULDN'T LEAVE!! This place is sooooo cool - sooooo hip and sooooo fun.
I spent 2 hours there that day, looking over tons of kits, fabrics, books, etc. I found myself circling what classes I would take on their calendar - and believe me, there are too many to choose from: Soap making, Yudu, Chocolate, Hand Sewn Animals, etc, and I even planned a fundraiser for my school to take place there! The best part, now that I'm instantly addicted, is I don't have to design my own scrapbooking room - I can become a member of The Urban Craft Center. Membership allows you to use the studio space as a home base. You can drop in at will, store your supplies in their lockers and have access to all the studio equipment (sewing machines, Yudo screen printing machines, Book press - the list goes on and on). Membership is not a requirement, however. You can drop in for classes, pay by the hour to use all the equipment or swing in for a free open studio night - they have one once a month (this month it's Friday, October 29th). But hey folks, let's not get carried away, I'm still not slipping on those mom jeans anytime soon, I have some dignity left.
Alert! Alert! Warning!! Run. Run very very fast. Few things are as addicting as soap making and before you know it, you will find yourself driving 112 miles north because you found a little supplier that has a higher purity liquid shea butter that you can add to the imported vanilla oil you found online at a horrific price per quarter ounce (which cost twice as much because you had to have it overnight) for the beauty bath moisturizing bar.
ReplyDeleteAnd then you find the custom mold web site.
And then you find the place that makes all the containers for you to store your personalized custom-designed bath salts. With dead sea salts of course, as well as pure EVOO, and some of that shea butte....
...not that it's ever happened to me. I read about this addiction. That's all.
I never drove over a hundred miles to buy shea butter and I never EVER spent $40 on a quarter ounce of an extract.
And I never paid $35 to have it express delivered overnight.