Soap

Daddy and I just made a, rather crude but it's mine, soap mold. We used cut offs of 1x6 planks from making one of our sheds, the inside dimensions are approximately 3.5" wide x 7" long x 2.5" deep. I'm not sure how much it'll hold, but I'm going to try it with 1.5lbs using the Green Tea Mint recipe I posted, just scaling it up. I'm waiting for the lye and other ingredients I ordered from Mountain Rose Herbs which is good because I want to take a piece of sandpaper to the mold to clean it up a bit, the wood has been sitting outside for at least a year.

A book I ordered came today, 'Elixir's Tonics and Teas' by Jeff Stein and Edgar Veytia. I flipped through it and I am now in love. It has some simple but useful recipes for just about everything and a lot of history and reference. There are two drinks I want to try, Study Hall Fizz and Sweet Memory Tea, they both sound yummy and useful.

Study Hall Fizz
2 floz pineapple juice
2 floz mango nectar
2 floz papaya nectar
1 dropper lycium
2 droppers red ginseng
4 oz seltzer or sparkling mineral water
small chunks of fresh pineapple

In a tall glass stir the juices and herbs together, add the seltzer and stir again. garnish with pineapple chunks.

Sweet Memory Tea
1 tsnp green tea leaves
1/4 tspn dried stevia
1 dropper ginkgo extract

Make a tea with the dried ingredient and hot ,but not quite boiling water. Let steep for three minutes then add the ginkgo extract.

I posted pictures on my Pictures Page if you want to see the mold we made.

Muscle Mend

Back, again.

I have found recently that I can't live without Burt's Bees Muscle Mend. It helps with little scrapes and bruises and cuts down on some of the surface soreness in my knee. But it's really expensive and I'm really broke and can't work because of my knee and we're going to Croatia in July; so even if I could get a job now, I'd be taking off for a month about a month after I started. I looked up the ingredients and using my limited knowledge of creams and salves I came up with a fairly simple recipe for my own beeswax based muscle mend. The main focus is clove powder, for the antiseptic and numbing properties. So more bulletin board play and I have a pretty picture for you, sorry again if you can't read it on here, but if you click it you can see the full sized pic.

Still too poor to try to get the stuff to make this, but I'm getting there. Until next time, happy reading.

All pics and price quotes are from Mountain Rose Herbs no copyright infringement is intended.

Shampoo

Playing with the bulletin board again, this time a shampoo recipe that my friend gave me. She uses it and loves it, we have similar hair (long and straight) so I figured I'd try it when I had the money and time... so not yet. Hope this one is a little easier to read.
Still on the creative note, I've posted links to some of my better poems on the Creative Writing page. Still trying to find cheap private posting to link to my short stories so I din't have to waste space on here. Until next time, happy reading.


once again all pictures and price quotes are from Mountain Rose Herbs I own nothing and no copyright infringement is intended

Bruise Salve

First legitimate post!! So, I've been playing with the bulletin board app on the new Toshiba I got for graduation and decided to see what I could do. This is a blend of recipes that I found and have yet to try. If anyone wants to try it and tell me how it goes or has experience and can give me pointers that would be great!


sorry about the bad quality you can click it to see the full sized image, but here's what it says:

Ingredients

• 3oz Kokum Butter
• 1/2oz Calendula Flowers
• 1/4oz Fenugreek Seed
• 1/4oz Thyme Leaf
• 1oz St. John's Wort
• 2.5oz Kukui Nut Oil
  

Directions

1. Gently crush seeds with mortar and pestil (do not powder)
2. Put herbs and seed in medium wide-mouth jar
3. Cover with 2.5oz boiling oil
4. Let steep until cool
5. Melt butter in double boiler or microwave
6. Strain oil into butter and stir until smooth
7. Pour into tins or tubes and let set

Until next time, happy reading.




all pictures and price quotes(if you can read them) are from Mountain Rose Herbs, not copyright infringement is intended.

Welcome To the Land Normalcy Forgot

Hi All,
Not my first blog, just the first I'll keep up with(hopefully). I'm Margaret, a college student, born and studying in New York. My father's family is all English so we spent a lot of time in Europe and we have a family summer home on the Island of Korcula in Croatia.
I love to ride horse, mostly English style. I jump up to 3foot 9inches and currently don't have a horse. I have an almost unhealthy obsession with reading fiction and write to save my life.
My current hobby, and I think it'll stick, is learning about and attempting to make herbal remedies and products. So far I haven't had the time to try any of the recipes I have found or made up in my head, but if anyone has ideas that they think I should try, I'm all open and will blog about the experience.
I also make embroidery thread bracelets and have set myself the challenge of making a bridle out of embroidery thread, so any designs anyone wants to see, post me a link and I'll see where I can work them in.
Unfortunately I injured my knee in a series of bad riding accidents and can't ride, or walk on some days, and my doctors are having trouble finding a way, sans a surgery that might not even fix all of the problem, to get me fully functional again.
So, welcome to my life, and hope you enjoy the show.