It started with seeds in a garden — or perhaps they were seeds in a greenhouse planter. Wherever it was that they started, they started, but they didn’t complete their purpose for a good, long time. It took a long while before the sage plant and the lavender plant was fully grown and ready-for-harvest. But for my purposes, these plants were far from their finished work. So far in fact, that the plants — once harvested at last — had to travel over 500 miles from my mother’s hands to mine. Yes, my mom was thinking of me and my love of soap making as she plucked those lovely-scented branches of lavender, and leaves of sage. She hung them to dry and then sent them north to my house in Pennsylvania. That was last year.
I enjoyed receiving that package in the mail. My husband had commented that the box “smelled like a tea shop”. Indeed, it did! It was lovely!
Well before these events — somewhere else in the world — someone had designed a beautiful soap mold inspired by honeybees and honeycomb. And in yet another place in the world, someone other than the designer, actually created that mold and multiples of it. I was the proud owner of a copy of their beautiful work, as I owned (and own) two of these pretty molds. Meanwhile, my mom kept saying how lovely the dried herbs would be in my soap. So I decided that these two lovely things — the soap mold design, and her collection of dried lavender and sage — were the perfect blend of a future soap in my shop.
It was over the winter or spring that I actually poured the soap, and over the spring and summer that I allowed it all to cure. FINALLY, we are ready to “roll out” this beautiful herb-rich guest soap with matching soap bars to the public! My customers will love these Lavender, Sage and Orange Soap Bars with Honeybee Guest Soaps!
Now if only I had a “Bed and Breakfast”, I would be presenting these to my guests too! But, just like this lesson that you can’t rush art, and it took a while to get these beautiful soaps completed, I am satisfied to think that owning a “B and B” is also an “art” that can’t be rushed.
Pursue creativity with patience and diligence! One day, you just might see a beautiful result!