Workshop

Dates: Friday, May 14th

Friday, May 21st

Friday, June 4th

Times: 6pm – 7pm

Dates: Friday, July 9th

Friday, July 23rd

Friday, August 27th

Times: 7:30pm – 8:30pm

Dates: Friday, Sept. 24th

Friday, Oct. 8th

Friday, Nov. 12th

Friday, Nov 19th

Times: 6pm – 7pm

Schedule Appointment
 

The word ‘yoga’ means union in Sanskrit, and this is exactly what partner goat yoga aims to achieve. It is a fabulous medium for building stronger communication in just about any kind of relationship, whether it is friendship, a family member, or your significant other. Add goats into the mix and you have a wild class designed in an awesome way to create nurture, trust, strength and a sense of laughter and light heartedness! This is your extra dose of happiness.

Dates: Sunday, May 2nd 

Sunday, May 9th

Time: 1pm – 3pm

Schedule Appointment

Make some magic in May, turning a pile of ordinary junk mail into the an extraordinary piece of art.

In this 2 hour workshop, we will guide you through paper making from upcycled paper material, lavender and rose petals. Once the paper pulp is poured into a heart shaped mold, the hearts can then be decorated with ribbons, beads, stamps and paint. The finished cards are bound with a tiny ribbon on the spine.

Each attendees will make at least 2 cards and will have their own paper making press to work with.  Each Mother’s Day card you make will come with an envelope. Teens and adults are welcome in this class.

Attendance is limited for social distancing. For our safety and yours, please bring a mask.

This workshop is scheduled on two different days: the Sunday before Mother’s Day, for those who want to make a cards as a surprise for Mom as well as on Mother’s Day for those who want to share the experience with their mother.

Lavender tea and lavender shortbread cookies will be served for refreshment.

Date: Saturday, May 1st

Time: 10am-2:00pm

$140.

All materials included.

Please bring a bagged lunch

Schedule Appointment

Join local artist Sam Matthews and floral designer Nicole Spadafora of SpadaFlora Botanical Artistry for a fun spring day of creating and joy at Mad Lavender Farm.  This workshop will be held outside, on the beautiful grounds of the farm and following all social distancing guidelines.  Please dress appropriately.

The first part of this workshop will focus on floral arranging and design techniques. You will be guided through creating your very own floral foam free arrangement, using a lovely selection of 100% local New Jersey and USA grown sustainably sourced Spring blooms. Nicole encourages participants to see flowers in ways they have not thought to look at them before and to open to new ideas.  Each stem in an arrangement is like a brush stroke in a painting and with each design, we are creating art.

We will then break for lunch.  After lunch, artist Sam Matthews will take the reins and guide you thru creating a watercolor painting of the very floral arrangement that you have just created with Nicole!

Sam will guide you in basic drawing skills and how to have fun painting flowers. All skill levels welcome and no experience needed. But please do bring patience for yourself and excitement to try something new! Sam believes that this journey of artistic exploration thru flowers and watercolor is a way of empowering others to tap into their creativity regardless of their experience or skill level. She believes art is meant to be to be a process that you find joy in. She is so excited to also be bringing her 1978 VW bus, “Flo”, that you will be able to take a complementary Polaroid picture with!

Light snacks and tea will be served. Please do not forget to bring a bagged lunch.

Oil Distillation in Your Kitchen

Date: Sunday, July 11th

Time: 2:30pm

Schedule Appointment

Oil Distillation Masterclass

Dates: Sunday, June 20th & Saturday, July 10th

Time: 2:30pm
Schedule Appointment

There is nothing so pure and distinctive to a flower or an herb as its scent. Scent is a complex mixture of volatile compounds, chemicals that vaporize into gas when released by the plant. More than a thousand years ago, Persian physician Ibn Sina discovered how to capture the intoxicating scent of roses into a bottle by the method of steam distillation. The product that is collected from steam distillation is what we term “essential oil”, the elusive essence of the plant that contains its scent. An additional product of the steam distillation process is hydrosol. Also known as “flower water”, hydrosols can contain contain some of the valuable elements of essential oils plus other, water soluble beneficial compounds.

We at Mad Lavender Farm are so excited to be able to offer workshops in distilling essential oil and hydrosol. We have two different workshops: Oil Distillation in Your Kitchen, designed to make small quantities of essential oil and hydrosol at home with the simplest utensils and Oil Distillation Masterclass, for those who would like to make a greater investment into essential oil production. Both workshops will be lavender centric but we will investigate other plant material as well, such as peppermint and sage.

Lavender is one of the more generous plants regarding its oil yield from distillation – another reason it’s so satisfying to make on a smaller scale at home. We will be looking at the different varieties of lavender and stages of bloom in terms of the quality and quantity of oil that is produced. The workshops will take us into the field to harvest the product and into our lab to experience hands-on how lavender and other herbs are alchemized from volatile scent to bottled oil and hydrosol.

Our Oil Distillation Workshops are taught by Dr. Alex

From as far back as they can remember, Alex has always been fascinated by nature. Growing up in a family of scientists, Alex was soon guided into formal education to explain the world around them.  After years of schooling and a PhD in biochemistry, they realized two things:

ONE- There is no way to learn everything, but that’s no reason to stop trying. TWO- Science and research are partners to and translators of ancient wisdom. We are not the first here, and we won’t be the last. Alex is happiest learning, teaching, music-ing, or just being in awe of what IS.