One of the coolest things about doing what we do is getting to know other folks who do similar things (i.e. play with herbs for a living). And play with and enjoy the things they make! So today I wanted to share 2 recent faves with you all.First off is The Essential Herbal's SUPER FUN beadmaking book and kit. HERBAL BEADS? Yes, indeed. It is so much fun to make your own beads out of fragrant herbal materials. They are earthy, beautiful, and fragrant. I suggest you get several different varieties of the powder mixt to try, because once you start playing with these, it's hard to stop. It's a fun project to do with a couple of friends or with some crafty kiddos. Tina's books are all well-written and totally top-notch, and this one is no exception.

Second - this amazing new perfume, Eden, from Aroma Artisan. I got this before Christmas, and cannot believe I haven't blogged about it yet. IT IS SO WONDERFUL! Making natural perfumes is such an incredible art - I do not have the skills for it myself (oh how I wish I did...), but I have incredible respect for those who do.

So, I don't really have words to describe this perfume, so I won't embarass myself by trying. Instead I will let the perfume artisan's words (and the ingredients list) speak for itself:

"Eden perfume oil focuses around 4 primary essential oils: Jasmine sambac absolute, rich sandalwood, fresh ginger and smoky guaiacwood.

This perfume has a lavish array of wonderful essential oils: jasmine sambac absolute, sandalwood, paraguay guaiacwood, indonesian fresh ginger, spanish myrrh, madagascar vanilla absolute, spanish saffron, folded italian lemon, french cocoa absolute, albanian orris root co2 select, french cepes absolute, in a base of fractionated coconut oi, jojoba oil and (vitamin e)."

In short, this is an amazing array of delightfully blended natural essential oils, absolutes, and resins. She even has very reasonably priced samples available for sale on her etsy store, so run, don't walk, to Aroma Artisan's Etsy store and try some. You won't be disappointed, I promise!

It's ridiculously cold here.

AND.

It's going to get colder in the next 24 hours. GAH!

The low for tonight is -5, with windchills as low as -30. We had lovely whiteout/blowing snow conditions driving home from the farmer's market today - always delightful.

The HIGH temp for tomorrow is -1, (can anything negative actually be called HIGH?), again, with delightful -30 windchill factor.

The low temp for tomorrow night is a wicked -14. I seriously cannot fathom it. I will be cuddled in my house, on the couch, with cats piled all around me. (The good thing about living with 8 cats - your lap never gets cold).

Right now, we're watching the wind - we have no specific plans to cancel tomorrow's Sample Sunday due to weather, BUT - if there's loads of blowing snow, our driveway or road could drift shut. I will post here on the blog if that is an issue.

Are you tired of listening to me whine about the cold? Okay. I'll post something slightly more interesting.Some of you may notice that we are slowly updating our website photos, from old crappy ones I took (hey, I did the best I could with zero photography skills and an ancient camera) to really nice spanky new ones, such as you see above.

They look pretty nice, huh? clean and professional.

Well, they were done by our resident "king of cheap DIY lighting and photo gear" guy. He can do amazing things with sheets of glass gotten for free off craig's list, yogurt lids, sticks-in-coffee-cans-full-of-cement, and bits of remnant fabric and pvc pipe.

For example, this photo above was taking in my living room - here is the "setup shot" (complete with coffee mug and dog food bowl).



This gorgeous photo was taken in a simple basement room. (see photo below).


There are loads more of these product and setup shots, complete with notes and info, on John's Flickr, if you're interested. I just think it's fascinating to see the setup behind the photos, and thought you might too. Enjoy!

Well, it appears that winter is on it's way.

We had snow already, which I find disgusting beyond belief. It actually snowed all day last Friday. The ground was warm, so there was barely any accumulation - a mere dusting of snow that melted on Saturday. But STILL. snow. :(

It's been grey, overcast, windy, and cold for the last few days. I think we narrowly missed an ice storm last night. This morning my deck, grill and fence were covered with ice, but the roads and driveways are fine.

It always surprises me how many people assume that our farm closes for the winter, or that we get to our "slow season" after the harvest is done. HARDLY! During October, as the harvest and garden work is winding down, we make a concerted effort to start stocking the store. See, we make, package,and label darn near everything in our little shop - which takes an awful darn lot of time. Not only do we do that, but we of course have to make sure all our herbs are dried and stores, and that we have FULL stores of all of our essential oils, butters, containers and labels. Plus keep the website updated, blog, and write a newsletter. All in all, our days are quite full. And as we get nearer to the holidays, we just get busier and busier. The time from October until the end of December is like running a marathon - it's a long haul, and we get really really tired (and a little loopy as we get nearer the "finish line").

But it's FUN too, cuz, see - we're like Santa's Elves. We make things that make people happy - nice smelling, happy gifts for people to give to the folks they love. People that come into our store are deliberately avoiding the "box" stores and the malls. It's relaxed, it's fun, they're happy to be out of the crowds and commercial gross-ness of the big stores, and we're happy to help them. We take time to do custom gift baskets, and gift wrap for free. We are grateful to our customers, because they allow us to do what we love - live and work this land, make fantastic products, and enjoy the seasons. So, it's a lot of work, and we do get tired at the end, but it's also a joy.

Speaking of work. I have about 150 lbs of bath salts to make. Those will go to three different stores, and our shop. Then, I have to make about 10 batches (around 100 bags) of milk baths. But first, I do want to take a moment to rave about a fellow small business owner.....


....Aroma Artisan. See - we've been working around essential oils and scents, professionally, for about 10 years now. And the longer we work with scents....the pickier we get. You have to work HARD to impress us with a perfume, or scrub, or bar of soap. But Aroma Artisan has set the bar VERY, VERY high. In short, her products are AMAZING. She makes absolutely divine handmade, small-batch, essential oil perfumes, which I cannot recommend highly enough. I have several of her perfumes, and each one is divine. Visit her etsy site and do NOT hesitate to order from her - I've yet to have anything from her that is not top-notch!!!

A few housekeeping notes: The Soleil limited edition perfume is sold out!


We still have 2 spaces left in our November Soapmaking 101 class, and several slots in each in our Natural Dyeing and Natural Cleansers classes.

Let's put aside the fact, for a moment, that it is 8:00 on a Saturday night and I am on my computer, updating our website and blogging. (I'm sipping Templeton Rye, a fantastic locally-produced whiskey, while I'm doing it, which I am pretty sure adds at least 10 "cool points" to my mojo-meter....)

ANYWAY. We have so many amazing things going on this month for our 10th birthday bash. I just gotta get 'em online. So, we're starting with this fantastic, LIMITED EDITION natural perfume, made by our friend Tina at Faerie Made Soaps. This girl is rockin' with the natural perfumery. (Also she is celebrating her sixth year of business. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!) This perfume is called "Soleil" - we have 30 of these in stock, and when they're gone, they're gone. So, if you're into a sexy, sultry blend of coriander, citruses, vanilla, jasmine and more...welllll.....stock up on this fantastic perfume. You won't be sorry.