in the kitchen

i finally got around to making a couple things on my DIY list:

homemade vanilla extract- you need a bottle of vodka, a cup or so of dark rum and 12 vanilla beans.  empty about a cup and a half of vodka from the bottle.  split the vanilla beans in half and put them in the vodka along with the cup of rum.  let it all sit in a dark place for 4 months or more, mixing gently once a week.  then share with friends cuz you'll have a lot of vanilla!

herbal tea for blood sugar balance- includes bilberry leaf and fruit, bitter melon fruit, fennel, stevia, gymnema and cinnamon.  i make this to help with my crazy sweet tooth.

all the tea herbs and the vanilla beans were purchased from mountain rose herbs.

xo

WORK+HOME

my one small counter.  it needs to get tiled.  but it's big enough to make my favorite bread:

windowsills collect things.  unripe tomato which fell too early, a 1970s sprouts book i picked up at the dump swap shop:

some dried herbs:  

favorite photographs.  one of my kids when they were little.  the other of my grandma alice:

enhabiten will be very black this fall and winter.  i've been working in the dye pots.  i truly love it.  the new stuff i'm designing is making me really happy:

pale mossy green on black:

flowers brought in:

 my small work area with drying herbs.  the bare wood door leads to what will be my bedroom but the space needs work.  like, um, windows:

i'm sure i've mentioned that my place is small.  my living room is my kitchen is my studio is practically my bathroom.  i'm serious.  the bathroom is right there on the right with the green door and the walls only go up about 3/4 of the way to the ceiling.  if you come to visit know that there is no room for bashfulness.  i can play loud music for you when you're in there if that helps.  or step outside for a minute.  but we're casual here so let's just have a couple beers and get to know each other better.

xx

weekend

hey sexy dudes.

so i made a list of things i wanted to accomplish this weekend and i freaking nailed that thing.  

i crossed off a good 3/4 of the tasks.  

i had deliberately made the list overly ambitious thinking 1/2 of it was totally not gonna get done.

BAM!  BAM!

take that.

...

here are some pictures of my place.  and my industriousness.  can you see some of the things i did??

harvested and drying holy basil.

i plan to include it in an herbal tea blend.

i will share the recipe with you when i make it.

i freeze enough free blueberries from a defunct pyo patch to last a year.  

can't wait for tomatoes.

need to make pesto this weekend.

drying materials for enhabiten.

front step.

miss lola.

...

and i am planning to put some of the new pillows in the shop today and then more tomorrow.

DIY shelves + seedlings

yesterday i got myself an old wooden door and took it apart. it was real weathered with rusty nails throughout so it took some doing to dismantle it.   then this morning i cleaned the boards up and hung them with some L-brackets.  

a carpenter i am not and i had some trouble finding the studs.  wall studs, that is.  so the brackets are kind of uneven and wonky.  but still  the project didn't turn out half bad, eh?

i have one more long board i think i'll use in my studio area and several shorter ones i'm going to hang in an as yet unknown location.  total cost for the project so far is less than $30.

i also wanted to show you some of the plants i have this year.  i grew some basil and tomato plants from seed and bought calendula, holy basil, chamomile, hyssop, lady's mantle, skullcap and stevia for my herb tea garden.  now i just have to get it all in the ground somewhere.

...

last night was my home herbal class.  the topic was maintaining healthy blood sugar.  unfortunately i have always struggled with sugar cravings so it was a good class for me.  we also do a fun little herbal take home project and this time it was making an herbal healing salve.  the ingredients are: beeswax, plaintain, gotukola, st. johnswort, calendula, lavender and mint.

i also wanted to share a picture of this handkerchief i found in a vintage textile lot. someone had carefully pressed it and pinned the note" found in grandma dalla's coatpocket."

and as i've been cleaning out my studio this week i sorted some buttons.  i kept the black ones from a tin destined for the giveaway pile.  i can't get enough of black.  in fact right now i'm brewing up some natural dye vats which will hopefully turn some hemp and lace into mottled black materials for use in my shop.