Saturday, November 28, 2009

Make Stuff!

Busily working away on making stuff. Not bad for a person who used to be oh so un-crafty.

For the tree...
The pomanders (oranges with cloves) will be wonderful when they're all dried up and have lovely ribbons around them, ready for hanging up. And they smell nice too. The popcorn strings have been fun for the whole family to (munch munch) work on.






I'm very proud of this knitted pidge scarf. Only took me two years ....













And Scott says he's had compliments on the hat all over town. "Mostly from moms who knit or crochet..."


Monday, November 23, 2009

Felted Toys



These are some of the handmade gifts I've been making for Rowan's birthday and Christmas.

I especially enjoyed making Lowly's shoe.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

For the love of chocolate!


Hey ya all.  First off, I want to tell you to take a look at the new blog description at the top, since I just changed it for us all, with our new, distant situation.  It was a bit outdated.  I must admit I haven't been crafting a single bit in a few weeks, due to chaos of moving, and mountains of boxes, but I do have some exciting, vegan, health food news to share.  This might be common knowledge, but when I looked on the "dairy" shelf in my new, fabulous and humongous health food store, here in granola town, Eugene, Oregon, I saw something most wonderful.  A new flavor of mochi that I did not know about: Chocolate Brownie w/ Walnuts.  I haven't actually baked and tried it yet, but it is sitting over there on my awesome new, flat top range, waiting for me to chop and pop into the oven this evening, for my nightly, after-the-kids-are-asleep sweet treat.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Rose Lotion For the New Apocolypse

The ingredients for this rich, emollient olfactory-titillating face and body lotion could all be wild-crafted or self-produced in the event of wholesale economic collapse. I recommend speaking to people in your community who have had experience in Apiarian preparations and/or oil extraction, or consulting your public library before it looses all funding, is forced to shut, and is looted for kindling.

1 t beeswax
1/4 t raw honey
4 T almond, or any available vegetable oil, lard or goose fat; or see if there are any eccentric old land-lovers left in your area who raise Emus, and ask if you can barter for oil.
4 T rose water

Put rose water in a blender with honey. (If electricity is unavailable to you, or if you are living in a highly degraded urban area see *) In a clean used glass jar, set inside a pot with a little boiling water, add the beeswax(measure by grating with a fine cheese grater) to the warmed oil. Swish around the contents of jar a bit until the beeswax is melted. Remove jar from heat. Allow to cool, but not to a solid state. Add oil and wax mixture to blender contents while blending on high. Blend for a minute or so. Store in a clean jar. Lotion should not separate.

*In an old tin can, rinsed as thoroughly as is possible with what remains of the little dew you collected that morning from the plexiglass fragment of the old rubbish heap you now call home, melt the beeswax in the oil over an open cardboard and scrap insulation fire, being careful not to burn or cause the oil to smoke. When wax is melted add honey and rose water and whisk vigorously with your old hairpin. Quickly remove from heat and continue whisking until a thick cream is formed and the lotion is cooled. Store in said tin can or broken glass cosmetic jar you found partially buried by that dilapidated ruin of a service station across the lot from your heap-home. Contents will separate over time, but are still functional.

Of course, no matter how powerful the grip of suffering, there are always fully-realized, enlightened beings holding the earth, the universe, and all beings of manifested consciousness in loving, compassionate radiant pure-presence. And at any moment any individual can fully awaken to the truth of the present moment to end all suffering.

God's Love--Consciousness--infinite, formless, ever-changing.



Fuzzy Legs:more than just leg hair


Tonight, in a rash and frenzied primal fit of fancy, I chopped the sleeves off an old felted sweater. Eureka! Leg warmers elude me no more! Add a dash of edging and a trizzle of needle felting, a pair of galoshes and Hari Krishna! I'll be the queen of the ball.