Green super goodness, and Kombucha update

Happy saturday to all!

 I wanted, among other things, to share one of our food passions; Spirulina, click for more info.

It is one of my husbands absolute favorite foods, second perhaps only to his "famous" pesto. Anyways being a mostly vegetarian family these spirulina shakes have really helped us get our protein needs filled.

Spirulina is a blue green algae and is packed full of  protein, 60% in fact, of pure vegetable, easy to digest protein, plus beta carotenes all your vitamin B's and all the other vitamin letters actually, and the list goes on. To make a shake, we use frozen bananas, we always keep broken up banana pieces in a container in the freezer, to these we add usually rice milk 

(cow milk some how seems to come out too heavy),  sometimes almond milk 

or on occasion soy milk.

Then we add raw honey and almond butter, blend it all up and enjoy. We have also added nutritional yeast, black strap molasses, soaked cashews or wheat germ all depending on what we have on hand.

Best of all the children LOVE these shakes, they have been raised on them and have no issue what so ever with the green fishy smell of the powder of the thick green consistency of the shake.

this is what the powder looks like (in case you are not familiar with this super food)

yum!!! Truly delicious..

No more pictures momma!!

And I wanted to share my Kombucha progress. A few weeks ago I set out to 

grow my own Kombucha mother, and two weeks later to brew my first batch using this mother. Today I enjoyed a first glass of this batch. It turned out so delicious, perfectly fizzy, not too sweet~perfect~ I am so happy with it, I mixed a glass with some of the echinacea syrup from the other day and that too tasted great, the children really liked it like this.

I poured the batch into two glass bottles and saved a quart to start a new batch.

(if anyone reading this is from the Asheville area, and would like a mother to start a batch, 

I now have an extra, if so leave a message in the comment section)

~May your day be wonderful~

Beautiful vases and lanterns

Lately I have come across a lot of creative projects that include the use of Mod Podge, and I just had no idea what this was, so I set out to find out, and what I found was that it is basically the same as the white glue/water mixture that I use for lanterns and such, except it has an added water based sealer included in the mix, which add a shine or not depending on the kind you get, as well as gives your project a more protective finish. I wanted to make my own and found different suggestions, one is to mix wood glue with water until you have the desired consistency, and another says to mix white glue with water and then add a water based sealer to that. Well looking around at the different options in the craft store I went with a bottle of actual Mod Podge, just to try, this way I know what my homemade one should look and feel like. As for a project to use this with, I have seen on both Gardenmama and Earthboys this past week beautiful flower vases, made in the same way we make our lanterns, and thought that that might be just the project to try out this Mod Podge.

We found some old glass jars, removed the labels, and added with a paint brush, the Mod Podge to the glass, then added the tissue paper, and then covered the paper with Mod Podge, up until this point it seemed much like the good old white glue/water mixture, if perhaps a bit more sticky.

Once dry we gathered flowers to add to our little vases, Keenan chose colorful flowers, I choose to fill mine with herbs, and Kaleena wanted hers to hold a candle and be a lantern.

For extra decorations we added some beads. A few weeks  ago Kaleena very much enjoyed to sit and play with beads and she made these beautiful little loops in different colors, and they added beautiful details to these sweet vases. Also a few weeks ago I had laid a few Queen Ann's lace flowers to dry between some books, and thought that a couple of them might look pretty added onto my vase. The Mod Podge worked great for this,  I am really happy with the result. As I look at the creations all finished, I really like the shiny addition of the Mod Podge, and it seems like these will indeed last longer than similar lanterns or vases we have made on different occasions, where now the paper is pealing off. 

All in all I really enjoyed my first Mod Podge experience:)

~have a  wonderful day~

Making a grapevine wreath

This morning we went to our favorite park. While the children rode their bikes, smelled flowers, found blueberries to pick and climbed trees, all the usual, I 

 looked around for inspiration for a project. I have been a little low on inspiration lately, still recovering from a stomach virus that hit us this weekend past.

I passed a beautiful flowering bush and saw that it was covered with grapevines growing 

all over and around it. Remembering that the wreaths I usually use as bases for our advent wreath and any other wreath we might make, are made from grapevines, I thought that this might be a great project.

Helping out this beautiful struggling bush, and making a home made base for future wreath projects.

Here is Keenan bringing the tangly vines, after we all got busy taking the leaves off.

We went back several times until the bush was almost free of vines, this I think was Keenan's favorite part of the project.

Kaleena got straight to work twisting the vines around each other, 

such a monkey she is, look how she uses her foot to work the wreath.

Keenan too enjoyed twisting and turning the vines around, his never turned into a wreath, but he took the task very seriously.

Here Kaleena's is all finished 

And here is mine, I was very happy with it, and believe that it will turn brown once it dries, just like the ones found in the craft stores, although I will have to wait to know for sure.

Back home and after a swim, we all got busy with wool, felt, cutting

and sewing 

This was what Kaleena made, and it was added to the big wreath to make it a pretty summer time center piece, perhaps for the front door once we get a nail hammered in.

This was Keenan creation, he too insisted on cutting and sewing the felt, 

and this was what he made,  he was very proud of it.

I made a sun center piece for the wreath

And here is the finished wreath. I think it turned out very cute,

simple and homemade with love.

And I look forward to see it changing with the seasons, and in time be part of our advent wreath.

Thanks for stopping by!

~And have a lovely day~

Green Salve

This green salve is something we have been using since we moved to these mountains and were introduced to it almost 4 years ago. The children love it, as do I, and we use it for any and all skin ailments. Bites, rashes, stings, 

bruises, scrapes and more.

It works wonderfully soothing and is so easy to make.

Inspired by A handmade life, I added dried calendula flowers this time.

Otherwise we added the same herbs as we added to our poison ivy spray.

Lots of Comfrey, plantain and some jewel weed, we also added some dandelion leaves.

chopped it all up, added the dried calendula flowers and poured a bottle of  Grape seed oil over it.

Left it in the oven for the whole day on the lowest temperature.

Then left it to strain over night

melted some wax 

and added the melted wax to the warmed up oil, if the oil isn't warm the wax will separate when added,

and here is lovely green goodness, ready for all those summer itches, scratches and bruises.

~Green Blessings~

Grow your own Kombucha Mother.

Last year we started brewing our own Kombucha tea, it is such a wonderful fizzy bitter sweet fermented drink with the added benefit of being extremely good for you on so many levels.

Back then a friend gave us a "mother" or SCOBY as the are called, which is the starter culture needed when brewing at home. I did not keep my batch going or I would have still had a mother. (with each batch, the mother grows a "baby", a new mother )

So when I started craving this wonderful drink again I started asking around and could not find an available mother. I asked at the local farmers market, and found one for sale for $20, which was just more than I wanted to spend, so with some research I realized that I could easily grow my own, 

and so I did.

I started with about a quart of boiling sterilized water to which I added two bags of green tea( you may also use black or white tea, but not herbal tea). I boiled the tea bags for a couple of minutes, then turned it off, and let the bags steep for I'd say 15 minutes or so. I rarely follow any recipe completely, and I am sure there are many ways to do this. Then I added sugar, a necessary ingredient for the fermentation process,  I added about 4T of sugar, and the let it cool to room temperature.

Then I poured my sweetened tea into a glass jar, must be glass, and added a bottle of store bought raw organic Kombucha,( The Raw Kombucha can be bought in any health food store) no flavors added, covered with a cloth, cheese cloth or other, and set aside in a warm place out of direct sunlight.

after one week, bubbles started appearing on the surface, a sign that the fermenting is happening

and after two weeks my new mother or SCOBY was ready

this is a look at it from the top

So tonight I started brewing my first batch.

Again I boiled sterilized water and added 7 or 8 green tea bags, like before you may use black or white tea, traditionally black tea is used I believe. Let it steep for about 15 minutes add about 1.5 cup of sugar, let it cool to room temperature, then I poured it into a 1 gallon glass jar, added 1 quart of already brewed live Kombucha ( I used what I had grown the mother in ), and added sterilized water almost to the top of the jar. Then I took my newly grown mother and laid it carefully to float on the top, facing the same way as I had taken it out, covered with cloth, put is back in its dark warm place, and there it will sit for about two weeks when I will pour off my fresh batch and start a new batch, remembering to save a quart for my new batch, plus I will have an new mother to share with a friend.

( I am also working on an experiment to see if I can grow a mother without the use of a bottle of already made Kombucha, I will post the results when I have an answer )

Lovely homemade goodness, I am looking forward!

Glowing ballon lanterns

In preparation for our weekend back yard camp out we decided to make some lanterns.
 This is such a simple project, and we have used this technique many times before, mostly to make little glass lanterns for Michaelmas or for Christmas decorations. Having used all available glass ware in the house for recent jam and herbal medicine making, we decided to use balloons instead.
(although glass lanterns would have probably been better suited for outside use)

(A few tips from this experience, next time I will not glue paper up so close to the knot as it makes it harder to take the balloon out once popped, also while you don't want to thick of a layer of paper, do make sure that there is an ample amount of glue on, at least enough that all paper is wet through, as this makes for a smoother surface and a bit harder lantern shell. the children's had not quite enough glue, and so had a bit more flimsy form, still beautiful though for sure.)

Ingredients are the same whether you use glass or balloons for your lantern;

watered down white school glue, tissue paper and paint brushes, and in this case balloons.

We then added strips of ripped up tissue paper with the glue unto the balloon

and once we had a couple of layers hung them up to dry.

Once dry, which took the better part of the day, we popped the balloon, and ended up with a scrunched up little raisin looking thing, the children did not like that part, yet they are easily straightened out once the balloon is removed. Then I cut around the opening and added a small candle, which of course I watch carefully.

Here they are all lit up, although you cannot really see it, as I haven't quite figured out how to take a picture without the automatic flash popping up (In my defense it is a relatively new camera, and I rarely read owners manual:) ) None the less, the children love their simplicity and warm glow.

Kaleena making a wish before bedtime.

We are looking forward to enjoying the effect of these lanterns around our tent,
and I will surely post pictures of this little event.
I do hope the weather holds up, saturdays forecast says it will, yet right now there is lots of thundering and threatening clouds.

Thanks for checking in,

and have a wonderful day!