The Making Table
A small-group workshop series at our Perth studio, where you blend, pour, pot, sow and harvest your own low-tox things and choose every ingredient that goes into them. Your bench is set before you arrive. Each season we run a different handful of workshops, spots are limited, and the list hears first.
Spots released to the list firstWhy we run them
Most people who care what is in their cleaning cupboard have never actually held the ingredients, and most people who want to grow their own food have killed a basil plant and quietly given up. Two hours at the table fixes both. You read the labels, you decide what goes in, and you leave with something you made or grew and can pronounce.
Every ingredient, plant, tool, vessel, jar, label and apron is weighed out and waiting at your bench before you walk in. You bring your hands and something you do not mind getting potting mix on.
Nothing arrives pre-mixed. Wax, oils, bases, botanicals, seed and soil sit on the table in labelled jars, and you build your own from them.
Pure essential oils and plant extracts only, and on the growing days, heirloom seed with no synthetic fertiliser and no glyphosate. Not a fragrance oil in sight.
Everyone goes home with a formula card, a care card or a sowing calendar carrying their exact quantities, so they can do it again without us. Commercially reckless. Correct, though.
How the series runs
We run four intakes a year, each built around what actually makes sense in a Perth season. That keeps the groups small and the tables unhurried, and it does mean spots go quickly. Dates, costs and the full run sheet go out to the list before they go anywhere else.
Sowing and harvesting through the heat, while it is still too hot to want a candle.
Timed around Mother's Day, and the first cold night is the one that sells candles.
Everything is shut and damp, which is exactly when an indoor table and a cupboard clear-out appeal.
Spring sowing, and the gift-making ones, timed so they are done well before December.
Proposed structure. The workshops in each intake, and whether an intake runs one session or three, is yours to set.
The programme
Tell us which ones you want and we will email you the dates they next run, what they cost, and exactly what to expect on the day.
Everything is supplied, and every workshop is priced differently.
Materials, plants, seed, glass, tools, vessels and labels are all included in the spot price, weighed out and waiting at your bench when you walk in. They are also not the same across the programme: a planted terrarium and a bath soak cost very different amounts to put on a bench, so each workshop carries its own price. Email us the ones you are interested in and we will send you the real figure for each.
Fragrance, wax and balm
Build a scent from single essential oils, learn why fragrance oils are cheaper and what they cost you, then hand pour into glass or stoneware.
You take homeTwo candles, labelled, plus your formula card.
A room and linen mist and a matching reed diffuser, blended to your own formula. No alcohol burn, no synthetic fixatives, no headache by Thursday.
You take homeA room and linen mist, a reed diffuser, plus your formula card.
Warm oils, beeswax or candelilla, and a salt soak. Nothing on this table is hotter than a warm hand, which is why it is the one that works for younger guests.
You take homeA lip balm, a hand balm and a bath soak, labelled, plus your formula card.
Plants, seed and Perth sand
The Perth edition, because our soil is sand and our summers are unreasonable. How to start a veggie garden from nothing, and then how to keep it producing all year instead of for six good weeks in spring.
You take homeA sown seedling tray, a planted pot, heirloom seed, and a Perth sowing and harvest calendar for the next twelve months.
A sealed glass world that waters itself. Layer it properly and it will sit on a shelf for years with almost nothing from you, which is exactly the appeal.
You take homeA planted glass terrarium, sealed and ready, plus a care card short enough to actually read.
The Japanese moss ball. No pot, no drainage tray, just a plant bound in moss and twine, hung in a window or set on a dish. The most photographed thing we make.
You take homeTwo kokedama, hung or dished, plus a watering card.
Bring your worst-looking houseplant. We diagnose it together, repot it properly, and teach you to read a leaf instead of guessing. Then you take a better one home as well.
You take homeA repotted plant in a ceramic planter, plant food, neem spray, and a watering schedule set to your actual light.
Free plants, essentially. Where to cut, water versus sphagnum, when to pot on, and how to stop a cutting rotting in week two.
You take homeFour struck cuttings, a glass propagation vessel, plant snips, and a pot-on schedule.
The useful ones
Make your own low-tox cleaning products from raw ingredients, and find out how few of them it actually takes. Also which supermarket claims mean nothing at all.
You take homeA full kit in glass, labelled and ready to use, plus your formula card and a slightly smug feeling.
Make your own food wraps from cotton and wax, then set up a bench compost that will not smell. The gentlest table we run, and the one schools ask for.
You take homeThree food wraps, a bench compost caddy, and a labelling kit for the pantry.
Colour out of eucalyptus, onion skins, avocado stones and black tea. No synthetic dye, no fixative that needs a mask, and results that are genuinely and pleasingly unpredictable.
You take homeA set of dyed linens, still faintly smelling of eucalyptus, plus your dye notes so you can repeat the colour.
Vegan, fragrance-free and pregnancy-safe versions of every workshop are available on request, at no extra cost.
Included with every spot
The object is the fun part. The rest of this is what makes the workshop worth more than buying the finished item off our shelf.
Not a generic handout. During the session you fill in a proper booklet as you go: your exact quantities, the order you did things in, the temperatures, the drying and curing times, and the notes you make to yourself when something surprises you. We print it, you keep it, and it means you can make the same thing again at home in six months without guessing or asking us. Every workshop has its own booklet, and it carries a substitution list so you are not stuck if one ingredient is unavailable.
You tell us what is in the room: asthma, hay fever, eczema, nut allergies, bee products, fragrance headaches, chemical sensitivity, pregnancy. We rebuild the table around it and remove those materials entirely rather than asking anyone to avoid them. We email you what we swapped and why, so nobody has to explain themselves on the day.
You blend your own from the oil bench, so what you take home smells like a decision you made rather than a decision a factory made. Prefer nothing at all? Every workshop has a completely fragrance-free version, at the same price, and nobody has to justify asking for it.
A single card with the safe dilution rates for adults, children, pregnancy and pets, plus the oils we will not put near any of them. It is genuinely difficult to find this stated plainly, and it is the card people tell us they end up using most.
Every ingredient, tool and vessel we put on the table, named properly, with links. Not a vague suggestion to shop the range: the actual products, so you can reorder exactly what you used without guessing at a substitute.
Every attendee leaves with a code for 10% off the Purely Organic store and off the Refill Club, so restocking what you have just learned to make costs less than it did the first time. It is the only discount we run anywhere, and the only way to get it is to have stood at the bench.
We feed you, and we photograph the table and what you made. The photos come through afterwards with no obligation to tag anybody, though we will not stop you.
What happens after you email
The studioYou come to us, and everything is already out.
We run every workshop from our own studio in Perth rather than turning up at your kitchen with three crates. That buys you proper benches, real ventilation, a sink that is not also doing the washing up, and a room set up before you arrive. The address and parking notes go out with your booking confirmation.
Send the form below or just email us. Tick the workshops you are interested in and roughly how many spots you want.
Dates for the next intake, the cost of each workshop you asked about, the studio address and where to park, what to wear, and what you take home. Within two business days.
Spots go to the list before they are advertised anywhere else. First in, and we will tell you honestly how many are left.
Come to the studio. Your bench is already set, everything is weighed out, and all you need to bring is an opinion about bergamot.
Also available
Outside the quarterly intakes we take a small number of private bookings. Same tables, same rules, your group only. Email us and we will send costs and available dates for these too.
Mother's DayGive her the afternoon, not another candle.
The May intake sits right on Mother's Day weekend, which makes a pair of spots a considerably better present than a boxed set she will be polite about. Book two and go together, or give a gift certificate and let her choose the workshop herself. Register your interest before the end of March and we will hold you a pair of Mother's Day spots for 48 hours before they are released to everyone else, plus we will post the gift certificate to you so there is something to actually hand over.
Give someone a place at the next intake rather than the finished object. They pick the workshop, and they get to keep the recipe.
Book out a bench for six or more and the session is yours alone, on a date that suits you rather than one of the intake dates. Everyone leaves holding something they made, rather than something they quietly rehome by Tuesday.
Bring the team to the studio for an afternoon. The terrarium and plant clinic benches are the ones that send twenty living things back to twenty desks. Invoiced, GST receipt, no icebreakers.
For under-12s we run the growing tables, the terrarium table and the wrap table. Sowing seed holds their attention far longer than anyone expects it to.
Before you ask
Because they change with each intake, and because every workshop costs a different amount to put on the table. Email us the ones you are interested in and we will send you the real figure for each, along with the dates and what to expect on the day. It also means the list hears about spots before anyone else does, which is rather the point of the list.
A printed booklet, one per workshop, that you fill in as you work. It has the method laid out in order with space against each step for your own quantities, your oil choices, temperatures and timings, plus the curing or watering schedule at the back and a substitution list in case something is unavailable later. By the end of the session it is a record of the thing you actually made rather than a generic recipe, which is what makes it possible to repeat at home six months later. You keep it, and it is included in the spot price.
No. Your bench is set before you arrive, with every ingredient, plant, tool, jar, vessel, label and apron already weighed out and waiting, all of it included in the spot price. Wear something you do not mind getting wax or potting mix on. The one exception is The Plant Clinic, where you are very welcome to bring your worst-looking houseplant and we will work on it together.
Because the materials are. A planted terrarium in glass, a set of dyed linens and a bath soak cost very different amounts to supply, so pricing each workshop the same would mean overcharging for some and quietly cutting corners on others. Each one carries its own price, and we will tell you what it is.
Deliberately. Small tables are the only way everyone gets their hands on the scales, so an intake is a handful of sessions and each session seats a small group. When one fills we say so rather than quietly adding chairs.
At our own studio in Perth, so you come to us rather than us arriving at your kitchen with three crates. It means proper benches, proper ventilation, a sink that is not also doing the washing up, and everything laid out before you get there. The full address and parking notes go out with your booking confirmation. We do not currently travel to homes or offices, and everything runs in Perth only, so if you are interstate the Low-Tox Home Consult runs remotely instead.
Our soil. Most of the Swan Coastal Plain is sand that repels water once it dries out, which is why a bed can look watered and be bone dry 50 mm down. We spend real time on wetting agents, mulch depth and compost, and the calendar you take home is set to a Mediterranean climate, not an east coast one. Sowing tomatoes in October here is a different decision than it is in Melbourne. We also spend the second hour on the part most classes skip, which is what to do in February and June so the patch keeps producing instead of giving you one glorious month and then bolting.
Tell us when you register and we build the table around them rather than making them sit it out. Several essential oils are not appropriate during pregnancy or around asthma, and we remove those from the table entirely rather than relying on people to avoid them. Same with nut-derived oils and bee products. We will tell you what we swapped and why.
Yes, if you do not leave them in the car. Seedlings want a week somewhere bright and indoors before they go outside, repotted plants want a fortnight without fertiliser, and a terrarium wants bright light that is never direct sun. All of it is on the card.
They are made to the same standard we would sell, but they are homemade cosmetics and candles, so they carry no shelf-life testing and no formal certification. Use the balms within six months, keep them out of the sun, and do not sell them. All of this goes on your formula card.
One, and only one. Every attendee leaves with a code for 10% off the Purely Organic store and off the Refill Club, which is the subscription that keeps your refills arriving on a schedule rather than you re-buying a plastic jug. We do not run sales, seasonal promotions or clearance and we do not intend to, so this is the single discount in the whole business and it goes to people who have actually stood at a bench. It comes with the restock list, which names every ingredient, tool and vessel we put in front of you, so you can reorder exactly what you used instead of guessing at a substitute.
The legal bit
Written in plain English because nobody reads the other kind. The full terms are sent with your booking confirmation and you accept them when you claim a spot.
Depending on the table there is molten wax at around 70 degrees, boiling water, sharp snips and a lot of potting mix. We run a short safety briefing at the start and everyone stays for it. You take part at your own risk and you agree to follow the instructions given on the day.
You must tell us in writing, before the day, about any allergy, asthma, skin condition, pregnancy or sensitivity for everyone in your booking. We rebuild the table around it and confirm what we changed. If it is not declared we cannot plan for it, and we may have to ask someone to sit a table out.
Each workshop carries its own minimum age and those are listed on every card. Anyone under 16 needs a participating adult beside them, not just in the room, and that adult counts as a spot. Under 12s can only join the tables marked for them.
Registering interest costs nothing and holds nothing. Your spot is confirmed once payment is received, and because spots are limited we cannot hold one on a promise. Prices are per person, in Australian dollars, and include GST and all materials.
Cancel more than 14 days out and you get a full refund. Inside 14 days the ingredients are bought, decanted and labelled and the plants are potted, so a spot becomes transferable to someone else rather than refundable. Send us their name and we will change it over.
If we have to cancel or reschedule, for illness, weather or anything else, you choose: a full refund or a spot at the next session, including the next intake. We will not leave you with a credit you have to chase.
What you make is homemade. It carries no shelf-life testing, no stability testing and no cosmetic certification, so please keep it for yourself or give it away, and do not sell it. Nothing made at a workshop is a therapeutic good, and we will never tell you it treats or prevents anything.
We photograph the tables and the finished pieces. Say the word and you will not appear, on the day or afterwards. Your details are used to run your workshop and to email you the things you asked for, nothing else, and you can leave the list whenever you like.
The Making Table
Tell us which workshops you want and we will email you the dates, what each one costs and what to expect. Spots go to the list first, and there are not many of them.
Get the dates and costsOr email us directly at info@purelyorganic.com.au