September 29, 2009
· Filed under Environmental Detox, Health Care, Natural Remedies · Tagged cooking, eating, healing, health, herbs, how to, remedies, safe, sickness, spices
You have a cabinet full of miracle medicine at home! I’m sure you realize that some of it is good for you, this sort of information has been all over the news. But the information is scattered and comes in small doses so that unless you keep a journal you will have trouble putting it all together. So I thought it might be handy to list every spice, explain how it works and give ideas for uses in your cooking. I will be posting in the future recipes that will help heal certain diseases. I am waiting until Winter because most of my recipes are too hearty for summer fare.
Although I have covered the subject in various ways and to a certain extent in previous posts, I am going to bring it all together now. Which spices can be used to heal what? And how do I use that spice in a meal? Here are the answers, in a simple list form:
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September 21, 2009
· Filed under Hobbies & Crafts, Home and Garden, conservation, diy, recycling · Tagged crafts, diy, foraging, green, halloween, handmade, holidays, projects, recycling, reuse
Oh, I know it seems kinda early to be talking about Halloween but when it comes to DIY projects it sometimes takes awhile to get it all together and no one wants to be rushed at the last minute. So I thought I’d throw out some good ideas for a natural, crafty type of Halloween so you’d have time to work on it if you wanted to. Some of these ideas are really scary so be careful how you use them; if you have religious friends who are easily offended, keep that in mind. If you have kids who are easily frightened, keep that in mind as well. There are ideas that are not scary at all and will be enjoyed by everyone. I also have ideas if you want to throw a party, so those of you are up for that will find something as well.
I tried to find ideas that required few ingredients or steps so that people with skinny wallets or rushed schedules could work in a project or two. So here we go, from the sweetest to the scariest, in that order:
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September 15, 2009
· Filed under Environmental Detox, Health Care, Personal Care, conservation, recycling · Tagged chemicals, conservation, ecology, green, health, plastics, products, recycling, safe, shopping, toxic, waste
With all the grim news about plastics and plastic products, with much of this information already presented in my posts here on this blog, it brings to mind the question of whether there are safe plastics or not. Are all plastics poison? Or are there some that we can handle without fear? This question interested me so I thought I’d investigate.
Looking around on the web, I found quite a few articles about the dangerous chemicals in plastic and why plastic is dangerous to the human body. It took a little more digging and research to pull together a list of plastics and plastic products that are more benign. Here is what I discovered about both, in a handy, easy to reference, list:
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September 7, 2009
· Filed under Herb Recipes, Hobbies & Crafts, diy, recycling · Tagged crafts, diy, foraging, handmade, herbs, homemade, how to, inks, natural, projects, recipes
Now that I have finished the two part series explaining how to make herbal papers, I thought I’d post a few recipes for homemade herbal inks. There is no special equipment needed, really, and the procedure isn’t difficult. The first recipe, for Oak Gall Ink is a homemade recipe from scratch, where you make the actual ink yourself. The second recipe is for a simple scented ink, which requires only store bought ink and a few other ingredients.
The third recipe is for a colored ink. In this case, a red ink. With practice, you can learn which flowers will produce what colors and you can create many different colored inks using the same recipe. In fact, you may learn to blend all of these recipes in a creative fashion and come with a colored, scented ink made from scratch. Once you start doing this, it gets to be a lot of fun to see what you can come up with. Use your imagination!
It’s up to you which recipe better suits your lifestyle as to how much time you have and how creative you wish to be. The first recipe requires a few more ingredients than the others but it is the basic recipe for homemade ink that can be altered to make variations. Which ink do you want to make? For me, the goal was always a colored, scented ink made from scratch. It takes practice and time but the end result is really neat and a lot of fun to share with the kids and your friends, too (if they are the crafty type). So dig in and get started! And let me know what the results come out like for you.
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