Soap Making 2011

I did a soap making post a while back but I've never done an update on the recipe. So here we go.

Recipe:

In either ounces or grams, I use grams because I find it more precise and the math easier.

Water- 12 oz. or 366 g.
Lye NaOH- 5oz. or 143 g.
Coconut Oil- 12 oz. or 340 g.
Olive Oil- 12 oz. or 340 g.
Vegetable Oil (Crisco)- 10 oz. or 283 g. **

Combining temp: 120 degrees F
Time in mold: 48 hours

** I am aware of the destruction surrounding Palm oil which is the bulk of Crisco. I intend to change up this recipe and use mostly lard sourced from our local Farmer/Butcher. But I have to use up what I've purchased, thus the recipe above.

First thing I do is get my molds ready. I've used silicone cupcake molds, which work really well. But I just bought myself some no liner soap molds and I really want to try them out. 

I put all my fats into one big bowl and set it on the fire to melt and warm up. Takes a bit longer this way than heating it on the stove but this way's more fun. The olive oil I used in this recipe is infused with St. Johns Wort, which gives it that lovely red color and sweet smell. It should not effect the recipe other than imparting the awesomeness of SJW to the soap.


Now I get my lye and water ready. I read that lye will absorb water from the air so I don't get it out and pre-measured like I normally would. I do measure my water, using cold water from the tap and put it in the fridge to stay cool. After the lye is added to the water an intense chemical reaction takes place. The water went from 60*F to 180*F in a matter of seconds. Always ADD LYE to WATER. NEVER THE OTHER WAY AROUND! It can splash more and accidentally burn you.

Safety is really important! I use goggles and yellow rubber gloves. I didn't use to wear anything, because I'm young and invincible. But then I read a blog post from Deborah over at Antiquity Oaks about her adventures in the ER after getting the Lye/water mixture in her eye.  Needless to say I am convinced about safety and I now wear my oh so sexy goggles!

Ok back to soap... once the fats are nearly melted I'll go ahead and add the lye to water. The goal is to get both bowls (lye/water) and (fats) to the same temperature before combining them. As I said before, add lye to water. It will put off some serious vapors of which you don't want in your lungs. So I usually turn on the stove hood fan just before I put the lye in the water. I also cover my mouth with a towel just in case. Stir the lye/water until all the lye is dissolved. Then keep an eye on the temperature of both mixtures. The goal is 120*,  the lye/water will have to cool to 120 and the fats will have to warm up to 120. Once that happens pour lye/water mixture into fats bowl and mix. I use my little hand mixer which is super awesome for this task. I've also used a big kitchen mixer. Whatever works.

After about 2 minutes the soap will trace. Trace meaning to go from runny watery oil/water/lye to something more like pudding consistency. When the mixer moves the soap concoction should leave "trace" lines. Like running a spoon through pudding, you can see where the spoons been (does that make any sense?) Whatever.

So pour that gloppy soap thing into a mold. When I added the lye to fat it turned a horrid color of pea green. The really pretty red color imparted by the SJW turned green when the lye hit it. Which is fine because the soap should dry and cure out to be a softy green/yellow.

I added a small strip of parchment paper to my new mold. It isn't required but it should help me lift the soap out of the mold when it's done curing.

It has to be in the molds for 48 hours in order to have firmed up enough to handle. Also with these molds it forms an air lock so there is no getting it out before it's ready anyway.

This mold is a 3-4 pound size, molds come in many different sizes. This recipe fills one mold.

She's Here!

This is my Country Living Grain Mill. Fresh flour loafs of bread here I come!

Chive Blossom Vinegar

I love blogs, seriously awesome information can be found on blogs! I found a recipe for chive blossom vinegar. It goes like this: acquire vinegar (I used white wine) and fight some bees for chive blossoms. I don't mind saying I stole some from the side of a neighbors yard... come on they were infested with weeds and grass and looked like crap! I got some chive blossoms willingly from Neighbor Kara and Mom.

Next, wash chive blossoms and then get them as dry as possible (excess water will cloud the vinegar). They can be run through a salad spinner, I windmilled mine in a towel and then left them outside to dry out for about an hour.

Now stuff them in a jar and cover with acquired vinegar. I placed a plastic lid and a cup on top of the chives so they would stay under the vinegar.  This jar didn't have a lid so I made a make shift one with a plastic top a cloth towel and rubber band.

In about two weeks or when you like the smell and taste of the vinegar ( I suppose you could go up to 4 weeks) strain the blossoms out through a fine mesh to get every last scrap.

The vinegar will be a vibrant pink/red color and smell of garlicky chives! I've used it on salads this spring with awesome dressing results.

Making Lard

I promise I'll do a bee update but with tons of pictures and videos it's a long story. However the girls are safely transported and enjoying their new digs.

Mom and I ordered a half-a-hog from Rocky Ridge Ranch. In a quest to use more of the hog than most people I asked for all the organ meat and all the fat to process into lard.  I know Lard, right? Ewww! Ok, but as fat's go it is the most like our own and so easily processed by our bodies. I have been thinking about trying to get the least processed and most gas efficient fats as possible. Turning fat into lard is really easy it turns out.

I got two of these bags of fat weighing roughly 4.5 lb.
















I cubed it and put the fat into a stock pot along with 1/2 c. of water. The water will evaporate and helps the fat not burn and stick to the bottom of the pot.

Left side hasn't been heated yet, the right side is about 15 minutes into melting.

Close up uncooked.

Close up 25 minutes into cooking. See how it just melts.

Almost done. The floaties are called crackles you can eat them, they are like crunchy skin and fat. At this stage they make a crackling sound, hence the name. A word of warning, don't leave the pot because it needs to be stirred frequently.  I thought they tasted similar to bacon but they are really greasy (go figure). I think they might be better with some salt? But I am not desperate for fats so maybe I'll give them to the dog....

I don't have a picture of the straining process since I was by myself, but I lined a wire mesh strainer with several layers of cheese cloth and poured the whole pot through it.  Then ended up with jars that looked like this.

I did have a fiasco with one jar breaking and spilling hot melted lard all over the counter and the floor, after much cursing I got it cleaned up. Ugh!

After about 4-5 hours of cooling it looks like this.

One of the pots I under cooked so the the crackles were a very light brown. The other I cooked until the crackles were a golden brown. The two different pots yielded different smelling lard. The undercooked crackles smells cleaner less like bacon and just like fat or butter. The other smells of bacon or meat maybe, in any case it has a smell. The bacon one I'll use for cooking everyday things, the clean smelling one I'll use in pie's and such (not that I make many pies, but still).

From the one bag of 4.5 lbs of fat I got roughly 3.5 pints of lard. I left expansion space because I wasn't sure if it needed it ( better to be safe than sorry) then I stuck them in the freezer. It should keep for a year+ in there.

I also intend to use the lard for soap making if I can get access to more of it.

Log Cabin Knitting

I started this project back in December right when I got out of my sling. I added knitting as a form of therapy to get my shoulder working again. It helped a little, and knitting doesn't hurt like it did before I had surgery, which is a awesome. This style of knitting I found in a book called Mason-Dixon Knitting which a friend loaned to me over the winter. For a beginning knitter it's really easy but it doesn't look it. I did have to watch a youtube video that showed how to pickup stitches because I didn't "get" that when I read the book. All in all I'd say it turned out pretty well.

The above picture was taken just before I finished the last row. It's hard to see the different layers in the white and solid green parts but in the middle with the varying colored thread you can get how it spirals out from the center. The whole thing covers my lap from side to side and from my waist past my knees, so its roughly 3 x 3.5'. I've placed it by the back door which we were previously using a towel to dry our feet. The rug is made from cotton thread so it's super absorbent.

Hot Chocolate

My "other mother" Mom-J suggested that I write a post on Hot Cocoa Mix's. She wanted to know if I had any recipe's for making my own mix. Their are a wealth of cocoa mix recipes on the internet and it is so easy to make it would probably make a great homemade gift idea. However I find cocoa mix's way to sweet! So I started making them old fashioned style, which takes about 10 times longer than a mix does. But I find that the best homemade things are worth a little time and effort. So here is my hot cocoa recipe and how I make it. As I said I like mine on the more cocoa less sugar side...

Measure your milk (what ever kind you like to use), these mugs are 12 oz. and just about 3/4 full. I leave room for cocoa, spirits, and marshmallows. I use the mugs I intend the finished product to go into, rather than any exact measurement. Heat the milk to around 140* if you don't have a thermometer that's fine, the finger test works good too, should be around the "pretty warm but still touchable stage." Next we add the cocoa powder. For a 12 oz. cup I use 1.5 Tablespoons of cocoa powder per cup. So since I am making two cups I used 3 Tablespoons of cocoa powder. But I add them one at a time, and I use my little sifter to break up any cocoa clumps. It adds an extra dish and an extra step but it's SO worth it. It prevents the cocoa from clumping up in the milk and making a horrid mess!!

I stop and stir in the cocoa after every tablespoon I add the milk, which will also prevent excessive cocoa clumps. Once the milk and cocoa are thoroughly mixed I add the sugar and spirits. In this case I added 1 Tablespoon of sugar and 1.5 teaspoons (ish*) of Kahlua.

Peppermint Schnapps is another fine addition. Or the spirits can be left out entirely, however I would add a teaspoon or so more sugar if you leave it out.

I always add the marshmallows to the bottom of the cup and pour the cocoa over the top. This melts the mallows and adds some additional sweetness to the slightly bitter hot cocoa.

Once the all the ingredients are added I raise the temperature of the milk to around 160*-170* which is the standard "latte" temperature at most coffee shops. This way the hot cocoa isn't at a gulping temp and will last longer and melt the mallows. But if it's for kids the 140* temp is usually pretty good.

Pour hot cocoa into mugs, sprinkle with cinnamon and enjoy.


Hot Cocoa Recipe

2   3/4 full 12 oz. mugs of milk
3 Tbl. Dark Chocolate Powder
1-2 Tbl. Sugar
1.5 tsp. Kahlua or other spirits
handfull of marshmallows per mug

Lip Balm Update

I had to run some tests on the Lip Balm to make sure they were ready for the pocket (body heat melting). It turns out the cocoa recipe is not. It's too soft and needs more beeswax to firm it up. So today I am going to remove it from the tins and re-melt it, adding 1.5 tsp more beeswax and give this a shot. I am going to update the recipe on the previous blog entry and also here:

Cocoa
4 tsp. olive oil
2 1/2 tsp. beeswax (grated) 
1 tsp. cocoa butter
1/2 vitamin E capsule liquid

Lip Balm

I wanted to try and make my own lip balm from the bees wax we collected. Honestly it doesn't take much beeswax to do this. Only a few teaspoons. I decided to blend my recipes based on a few I've found online and just kinda wing it.

My Recipes:
Plain
3 tsp. Beeswax (grated)
5 tsp. oil (I used olive oil, but any carrier oil would work)
1/2 tsp. honey
1/2 vitamin E capsule liquid

Cocoa
4 tsp. olive oil
2 1/2 tsp. beeswax (grated)
1 tsp. cocoa butter
1/2 vitamin E capsule liquid
















One recipe made 2 burts bees tins. In an effort to recycle I have been saving them. I cleaned and washed each one before refilling it with my own lip balm. Some of the links I used to make them are here:  Lemelange and Yonderwayfarm.

I used a 2 cup pyrex and a stainless steel pot to serve as a double boiler. Then I added all the ingredients, stirred it with a tooth pick until it was totally melted and mixed (which doesn't take long.) I had two tins ready and poured the liquid into them and waited about 30 minutes for it all to harden and set up. Voila, Done!

Why have I been paying 2+ dollars per tin? I made the plain recipe once and the cocoa twice, I now have 6 tins of lip balm awaiting the dry winter air.

first knitting project

In my not so spare time, my neighbor Kara has been giving me the basic's about knitting. I caught on quickly this time because I've already had another basic knitting lesson from my other friend Gayl. I 'got' it when Kara taught me. I practiced and practiced with a small ball of yarn and eventually moved on to this:

It's my first ever knitted dish cloth. Wonky and not quite square, but still I did it!

Deodorant

I have been using the deodorant crystal for about a year now. But recently it hasn't been working as well, and I don't like being stinky! So I searched how to make your own deodorant. The recipes are endless, I found one from here that looked promising. I ended up changing it slightly, this is what I ended up doing.

1/4 c. Baking soda
1/4 c. cornstarch
4 + Tbl. coconut oil ( I ended up with around 5 Tbl. but start with 4)
5-10 drops of essential oil

The essential oil is optional, I used tea tree oil because I had it on hand. Tea Tree oil is also anti bacterial so I figured that couldn't hurt. I have used it for about 4 days now and so far no stink! I can't wait to give this a try on really hot days!

Crochet Hook Case Completed

I finished this like 2 weeks ago but never got around to actually posting the picture. I posted about crocheting a hook case for my various sized hooks and a few knitting needles. Here it is complete. I don't think I would do this project again, mostly because of the wool used to felt the outside was kinda pricey. I think I would just look up a tutorial online and sew one. I am much more comfortable with my sewing machine than I am with knitting/crochet.

But that's beside the point. :o)

Soap Making, first attempts

My first attempt at soap making didn't go quite as planned. I substituted and oil but mostly followed the directions exactly. The soap wouldn't thicken up or 'trace' so I poured it anyway and let the runny soap set up over night. Of course it didn't cure into soap.... so I did some internet searching and decided to re-heat the glop. It had thickened up over night but not to a 'bar of soap' stage, more like thick grainy yogurt. After reheating the mixture to 120* I re-moulded it and left it to firm up.  By 6pm last night I had reasonably firm soap bars. Still to caustic to use, they must air cure for awhile. But still not a total loss, on the plus side I have tons of soap!

The process I did was called cold process soap. What I plan to do next with this soap is hand mill it. Basically, I shred the soap add water and essential oils, herbs, colors (not likely), and re-mould it. This makes for a firmer bar of soap that doesn't just disintegrate in water. I can do this process after the soap has cured for at least 1 week.

I followed the soap recipe from down---to---earth, I changed the rice bran oil to safflower oil because I couldn't find the rice bran oil. Other than that it was pretty easy, scary but cool. I plan to make spiffier soaps but for now just a basic soap mix sounds good to me!

Honey Jar and Crochet hook case

We decided we didn't need to squeeze honey from a plastic jar. This is so much sexier! The artist from etsy is Mississippi Mud Potter.

My first crochet project, a crochet hook case. I haven't done all of it yet but I am almost there. From the book Chicks with Sticks guide to crochet.

Eco-wrapping/Furoshiki

I have been working on my version of Furoshiki or cloth wrapping for gifts. Using some left over squares of fabric from other crafts, I fold the corners down and sew the edges, voila homemade furoshiki! It's not beautiful because I can't get the soft edges I could if I had a serger sewing machine. But it still works and all the folding techniques are the same. Here's a beautiful wrap at etsy. And videos of how to wrap gifts on youtube. Most gifts this year will be given in cloth wrapping. Otherwise it will be reused bags, wrapping and ribbon. I save everything I can from gifts I get from others, this way any "disposable" items get used more than once.

Raspberry Jam

Well it is as promised a recipe for canning stuff. We did this about 2-3 weeks ago I know it's late but here goes. I made 2 different recipes because I have a brother who doesn't eat any processed sugar, so I had to attempt a wholly honey sweetened raspberry jam. Both were delicious! I do favor the sugar one only because honey tends to be a stronger flavor and there was a hint of it in the jam. Ok to the goods.....

bloggers note: For all my jams everything I add is either local or organic all of the fruit I have access to isn't organic accept the raspberries, so truly this is my only organic and local jam. Feels good.


Traditional Raspberry Jam (my way)

11 C. Mashed Raspberries ( I used a potato masher, rather nice for aggressions)
2 C. Honey (local please, don't by that shit from China even if it is cheeper)
1 C. Sugar
Pomona's Universal Pectin which allows for the drastic underuse of sugar to fruit ratio. This pectin is activated by the calcium rather than sugar like traditional recipes.
5 tsp. Calcium water comes with the pectin
5 tsp. Pectin

Heat mashed raspberries and calcium until bubbly. In a separate bowl mix pectin with sugar/honey this helps the pectin dissolve in the raspberries when you add it. Once it's bubbly add the pectin/sweets mix and re-bubbly it. Have your sterilized jars/lids/rings ready to go and the water bath boiling. To test if the jam is "set" to your liking I put a small dish in the freezer before I begin. After the jam has everything in it and is bubbling away, I take a spoonful and dump it on the freezer dish and put it back in the freezer for about 1 minute. This just brings the bubbly jam down to room temp quickly so you can see if you like how thick or runny it is. It was perfect so we moved onto the packing jars, lids, rings and get them in the water bath! We boiled ours for 12 minutes. Adding 1 minute for every 1,000 feet above sea level you are. I didn't write down how many 1/2 pints it made but I think it was around 12.


Jason's Raspberry Jam

This is the only honey recipe and it is a very small batch. It yielded 5 half pints.

4 C. Mashed Raspberries
1 3/4 C. Honey
2 tsp. Calcium
2 tsp. Pectin

Everything to process is the same as above, only I would have cheated and added about 3 Tbl. of sugar to help the pectin dissolve. It wouldn't blend with the honey and I ended up with pectin clumps that I had to squish. It slowed the process down considerably.

Tortillas

So for Christmas this year I got a tortilla kit. The kit is really unnecessary for flour tortillas. For corn tortillas you must use a press, but flour you roll out. The list of tools is as follows: Flat round 12" or bigger pan, (preferably cast iron) a rolling pin, measuring cups and ingredients.

Flour Tortilla Recipe
2 3/4 C. Flour (I use white flour, but I am going to start incorporating whole wheat flour, just too see.)
5 Tbl. Butter, I used olive oil and they came out fine
3/4 tsp. salt
3/4 C. warm tap water

I mix all these together with my hands. Sometimes I need to add more flour or water. The dough should be held together but slightly tacky light bread dough.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead it for 5-10 minutes. Cover and let it rest while you clean up and get the pan, rolling pin set up. Warm the pan up to a medium heat. The tortillas don't cook long and it helps if the pan is already warm. Divide the dough into 12+ pieces. I found I can get around 15-17 tortillas but I like mine a bit thinner. Round out each divided piece into a little ball.

This is the tortilla press, I use it when making flour tortillas but it isn't necessary. Using this if have one or can get one is pretty simple ( but the dough sticks to the metal so I use parchment paper to avoid a sticky mess.)

You really don't need this though, just take a dough ball smash it sorta flat with your hand on a floured surface and begin the rolling process.


A once round ball, smash it with the palm of your hand so it is easier to begin rolling out. I still have to roll out the tortilla even with the press. Because flour tortilla dough is so elastic it must be worked to force it to retain shape.

The smashed result. Then I take this flat (round until I start rolling out) little guy and stick it on a floured surface.

A word about the floured surface. Make sure there is enough flour so that the dough piece can spin in a circle freely. So that the dough rides on a cushion of flour so if you spin it.... the dough will move. This helps when rolling out, rotate the tortilla one quarter with every roll to help keep it in a somewhat round shape. I say "somewhat" because this is where practice makes perfect... and I am still very new at this.

Once it's rolled out it's time to go in the warmed pan medium heat works well, but play with it because every stove is different. The tortilla should only cook for about 15-30 seconds per side. Once it starts to get bubbles or large air pockets it is time to flip.
See what I mean about "somewhat" round? It's an art form I am learning... don't give up they taste great even if there square!

*sings* "Tiny bubbles...."

Sometimes the tortillas have tiny brown spots, that's normal. If the pan is too cool or you don't like the tortillas cooked that long, you may not get the brown spots. Either way it makes for a yummy burrito!

The rack of cooling tortillas. I think I got 15 out of this batch.


The whole process for me with clean up is about an hour. I am sure once I get more practice at it, the time will shorten considerably.

Farmhouse Cheddar

Well the cheese press came, sat and waited. I needed a stock pot that could hold 2 Gallons of milk, sadly I didn't have one. But after all the searching I have one. Plus it works with my giant pressure canner as a double boiler. WOO HOO! Double boilers are expensive. I digress, yesterday cheese making commenced! I opted on Farm House Cheddar which according to the home cheese making book is a good easy first hard cheese.

All went according to plan, it is a long process of waiting. Add this, let it sit for 45 minutes now add that and let it sit for another 45 minutes. Not too time consuming but definitely have a good book on hand or do something else in the kitchen like.... make tortillas, a whole other post all together.

I only took two pictures of the entire process because I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out. So I have the cheese being pressed and then this morning after it pressed all night.

I promise you it is cheddar. I know it's not orange! They dye cheddar.... ummm cows milk is white. Yeah, I never thought I was ingesting dye either. I was kinda shocked to find that out. I guess as the story goes cows milk has carotene in it which will make it a slightly yellow color. But it mostly depends on how much butterfat is in the milk, so cheese makers of old found they could use inferior butterfat milk add dye to it and charge a higher price for the cheese! HA HA! Us consumer suckers have been duped! I found it highly funny. So my cheese is a creamy white, no dye in that beautiful baby!

First attempt at Cheese making

I have been thinking about it for a while now. I really want to make my own cheese. I like the idea that I can make cheese from the organic cows that live about 10 miles from my house. The gal at The Country Market, sells 1/2 gallons of Raw Milk for $5. They are not certified organic but she follows a strict organic practice. They grow all the grain/feed for there chickens, cattle, cows, and pigs. I digress.

I purchased 2 kits, and an instructional DVD to try my hand at cheese making. One is the mozzarella/ricotta and the other is the hard cheese from CheeseMaking.com. I am following along with Ricki Carroll's book Home Cheese Making, which I've had for a while but not gotten around to purchasing the necessities.

The kits and DVD arrived, I watched and decided to give it a go! We made 2 cheeses, Mozzarella and Whey Ricotta. All from one gallon of milk. I won't go into the how too, because for that you really need the book plus I am still not sure what I am doing.

Anyhow, some videos of 2 of the steps.

Mom is stirring the cut curds while we bring them up to temp. Then we will scoop them out and start the stretching process.



Now in order for the Mozzarella to get that smooth shinny, elastic look it must be stretched. But it has to be at 135 degrees or hotter in order to do that, hence the gloves. We used the "water bath" method to keep the cheese hot, you can also use the microwave. I didn't place the cheese in a bowl and use a spoon to add the salt, I will do that next time because our salt wasn't evenly distributed through out the cheese.





We are in the discussion process of the cheese press. It is quite a bit of money up front in order to have accurate documented results. We would like to make sure we can duplicate our cheese results (for gift giving purposes) and the wood block with several pans stacked on top of the cheese just doesn't seem very accurate. I am thinking we will just spend the money on it, and think of it as an organic cheese investment. Since most of the cheese we currently eat isn't organic. We did a cost evaluation of home cheese making, our home made organic cheese would cost slightly more than a Tillamook baby loaf. But the effort of course would be much more. The cost would be about $13 for a 2 lb. loaf where Tillamook is around $9 for a 2 lb. loaf. To purchase organic cheese is about $21 for a 2 lb. loaf. So we will be saving money in the long run but there will be a bit more cost up front. Of course these are "guestimates," we aren't sure how much of a yield we will get. The directions say 2 gallons = 2 lbs of cheese but that could be more/less.

A work in progress. It was a ton of fun to make the mozzarella and a very cool feeling to make something from a gallon of milk!

Green Christmas Part 2 The Wrap

In our homemade pledge we also wanted to have gifts given in recyclable ways. Using recycled paper or craft paper. I know it doesn't have the shiny appeal and I am working on that. I think I may have found the solution to that but more about that later. This year we wrapped all our gifts in craft paper brown "paper bag" like paper and then adorned it with stamps and colored pencils. For the ribbon we used recycled twine and sometimes shiny ribbon as well. All of the bows were recycled from last year and we intend to do that again until we use the whole bag up that I got 2 years ago.

Mary Jo, Jacob's mom gave me a wonderful idea about old Christmas cards. Cut up the picture and use it as a gift tag! How wonderfully simple but still a great form of recycling. I really struggle with the gift tag because I don't want to purchase the self sticking kind and I don't want to use (fresh paper) for the tags when really that is such a small part of the gift. Really it is the most important part since it lets you know who it is for! I went to Value Village for a completely different reason but happened by there Christmas stuff. They had a bundle of miss matched beaten up Christmas cards for .50 cents. I bought it, and intend to utilize most of it for gift tags next year along with the Christmas cards I was given.

So about earlier comment on wrapping paper. I really like the idea of furoshiki a Japanese way of wrapping with cloth. Here is a video that demos some of the way's of wrapping gifts.

Another way I have just discovered is from this ingenious lady named Joell A. Jacob, I just happened to stumble upon her blog today. She makes cloth gift wrap with ribbon attached. Beautiful design and very crafty. This is the video she posted about her reusable giftwrap in action.



Some very wonderful ideas for birthdays and next Christmas. I will most certainly be making/buying these for gift giving in the future.

Green Christmas

Our goal this year was to make Christmas green. In order to do that we had some major thinking to do about what to get for family or what to make for family. Much of what we did this year was made, or purchased locally. The only thing we had to outsource was the flax seed (more on that later) that had to come from Iowa.

We asked that all our gifts be made, purchased second hand, traded for or internet based. This is the run down of what we got from others.

Mary Jo and Windy gave us some wickedly fun stuff! Jacob and I each got a green to the core scarf hand made, an earth friendly message sweatshirt that was traded for, a fabulous crystal (made by the earth thank you very much!) And an Eckhart Tolle 2 cd The Realization of Being. MJ gave me some great gift tag ideas that I'll post about later!

Jason, Jacob's brother gave us an Amazon gift card that is delivered electronically, no waste! Perfect!

My parents got me a tortilla kit for making home made tortillas! I have wanted to do this for a while now since I make my own bread I thought this would be a good venture to step into. Jacob got several jigsaw puzzles which help distract him during his upcoming surgery and recovery.

For each other we went with 1 want and the rest was home made or needed like gifts. For example Jacob's "want" gift was Tomb Raider Anniversary for Mac. I was a horrible to buy for girl because I couldn't come up with a want gift. I really didn't need or want anything. But I did get a new blanket that I now that I think about desperately needed. I was using 2 skinny wimpy blankets and my robe for a cover at night. Plus 2 new spatulas since mine had wimped out on me. Jacob made me a necklace holder and I made him a photo collage with updated pictures that he could take to work.

A pretty simple Christmas for us.

*Gift Spoilers ahead.... if you haven't gotten your gifts yet*

We made therapy bean bags, pieced together from multiple websites. Our chosen "bean" of bean bag is actually flax seed. Apparently flax keeps it's heat for longer there for less microwaving. We referenced these sites:Sew mama sew and, And sew it is.

Other gifts included the bees wax candles from Tahuya River Apiaries plus votives made by Mary Jo at Raven Rocks Studio. We also gave out our home made suet, see earlier post about how to make that. We also sent out dried fruit (that we dried this summer), cookies, breads and russian tea.

I know there is a ton of links in there, but I wanted to document where we got the ideas from. Thanks to everyone for a wonderful Christmas. Thanks for making it green and homemade with and for us.