Home Made Happy Face Cream

Some weeks ago in dark and dismal January a few of us girls (hah!!) at work got chatting about our hobbies and discovered that we are each gifted geniuses.  So we put some Saturday dates in our diaries to go to the home of that month's hostess, drink her tea and coffee, eat her food and learn her craft thing.  The first of these creative dates was yesterday and was a massive success :) Not only did we have a splendid lunch with contributions from all, we also learned how to make lip balms, body oils and the BIG revelation - face cream.  The recipe was similar to this one from the school of natural skincare.  We just used some different base and essential oils but the method is the same.  Some of our ingredients...

I didn't know just how gorgeous Papyrus oil is.  It's the sort of scent you only need to catch a waft of and it gives you an "oh that's all alright then" feeling and it seemed to complement everything we put it with.  Our host had brought some back from a holiday in Egypt and it's tricky to find in the UK but I found one online site, Hermitage Oils.  On the "ouch-how-much!?!" scale it scores an eeek but we only used 10 drops for about 90gms of cream which gave each of us a 30gm pot to take away with us and the delicious  scent had us ooohing and ahhhing all afternoon.  The texture is softy, creamy, silky, creamy, softy, yummmm (you get the idea) and melts into your skin without leaving a filmy residue or feeling greasy.  I'll have to stop re-applying it or at this rate my pot will vanish in days.

And at the end of the session we had made all this...we will be very, very beautiful on Monday.  

And the Couch to 5 K programme continues.  This run was the first of 3 for Week 6 and the sun shone so it was worth taking some pics during the walking sections.  Himself came with me as he always does if he's home and even though he can walk faster than I can run, it's good to have company :)

There's a lane we run down where the field alongside is starting to fill with the songs of skylarks looking for nesting sights and fighting for territory.  That's how we know spring is on the way.

And when I've completed the current programme, I plan to do a 5K to 10K programme and run over the hills and far away.

 Zentangling is still proving to be a very rewarding, restful thing and this week I've mostly focussed on practicing the patterns but this tile captures some new ones learned this week.  I really like the one that looks like netting, it's quick, airy and useful for filling a space when you've got to hurry up and do something grown up and boring.  Like ironing.