It's the Balm

I have been very busy these last few months.  Christmas came and went.  Another new year began.  We moved, twice...and still all the while I have been beading, knitting, sewing, growing, exploring and having an all around wonderful winter.  All though winter has been wonderful this year, I am so looking forward to the Springtime. 

Lately I have been trying to find time to improve the quality of  the photos I post on my Etsy site.  Last weekend I sat down with my camera, camera manual, and Etsy's Seller's Guide, specificly the photography section, to see if I could learn a thing or two about taking good photos of my stuff.  It was a real confidence booster when some of the shots turned out beautiful!  One tip in the Seller's Guide that I found useful in the photography of my seed bead work was the use of a lightbox.  Sawyer (age 3yrs 11 mo.) and I built one out of things we had around the homestead. We used a large cardboard box which we then covered in the inside with white paper.  The top of the box was cut out so I could position my light source directly above the beadwork I was photographing.  It created a nice bright backdrop for my seed bead work.  The lightbox has proven to be a very useful tool, a really fun simple project, and a great lesson in photography and light.

Besides the usual beading, sewing, and knitting I work on daily, I have started making lip balms!  They are really fun to make.  Presently, (Beatrix Potter-ish) I am working out all the details for my master balm recipe.  Yesterday I infused lavender and rosebuds in grapeseed oil to be incoprerated into my balms.  The base of the balm is bees wax blended with coconut oil, olive oil, jojoba oil, hemp seed oil, and grapeseed oil.  My mom told me that she really loves vanilla in her lip balm so I made a batch today with vanilla.  The smell of bees wax and vanilla is oh so sweet.  With Spring and Summer just around the corner I am planning on making balms and salves that  help make the bumps, bruises, burns, bites and stings and all around boo boos feel a little bit better.  With a plentitude of wild medicinal plants and herbs throughout this entire region I should have a wide variety of wildcrafted rememdies that are both natural and healing.

Like I mentioned earlier we have moved again but are settling in nicely to our new homestead.  Luckily for us there are about a billion walking,running, biking, trails and a huge lake right out our back door! (Well a pond is literally out our back door) The lake is probably a 5 minute walk.  We usually go for really long walks together everyday.  Sawyer has been pretending that he is a really fast steam engine and so he runs down the trail.  Shawn and I laugh because we know we have to run with him or else if we don't he will be able to run longer and faster then us...what would we do if we couldn't catch up to him!  We also enjoy going anywhere where there is water.  Living in Washington there is definately not a shortage of that.  We have found some pretty sweet little beaches along the Samish Bay that we can literally spend hours of our day at.  Sawyer learns about the earth in a really special way on long day trips to the beach and woods.  We have a Plants of the Pacific Northwest book that we aquired last summer from some folks we met at the Maple Falls Community Garden.  We take it with us everywhere we go and make a game out of identifying all the plants, trees, moss, ferns, berries, lichen, etc around us.  Sawyer is so knowledgable about his outdoor surroundings it makes me feel proud to know that he has such a strong sense of the earth.  The beaches are really fun to explore.  You never know what you will find on any visit.  The thing about the beach is that the tides really change the landscape so dramaticly that the beach you visited two days earlier is now completely changed.

Shawn and Sawyer in a beautiful green spot.