Wedding Tags, Favors and Bridal Dolls

Good day! 

It’s been a busy month with a celebration of life, an upcoming wedding, a 65th birthday and a new baby due, with a few other birthdays sprinkled in here and there. 

I was asked to make the tags up for the wedding favors for my youngest son’s wedding. Their theme is flowers, so I used a flower printable. They asked me to make them like some of my cards. Something like this card.

The tags were too small to add brads or gemstones, but the front is raised onto cardstock, and that was the main thing, I think. 

The white cardstock tags were cut on a silhouette by a friend. I did the flowered main piece with the writing on it in Inkscape, but you could easily use Word. I had irridescent cardstock for a backing on the flowered main piece. I taped these with dbl sided tape then put foam tape on the backside as shown. These were then centered on the blank tags. 

I was requested to put the ingredients of the cookies on the back of the tag. I typed these up in Inkscape and ran them off on sticker paper. This was the easiest way to do it. 

I wanted to cover the tag hole so I punched out some hearts to cover it using the irridescent cardstock. 

At first I attached the hearts with the embellishment tape, but realized it was making them too thick, so I used dbl sided tape instead. Prior to placing the hearts, I ran some cord through the hole so I could slip the twist ties through the cord (you’ll notice two knots about a 1/2” apart).

I made the bows with the instructions from a YouTube video using just your fingers. It was actually fairly quick. Unfortunately the bows did not want to stick. I used embellishment tape, and they’re sticking but they’re a bit fragile and can come off. I’m hoping they’ll stick well enough.  

I was going to use three colors of ribbon, but my third color never came, so we stuck with two colors and luckily I had enough ribbon in the two colors.

I had a hard time finding gussetted bags with a square bottom, but eventually I did find some in the right size. They’ll stand up on their own and that’s perfect! So here is a photo of the completed favors.

These cookies are gluten and dairy free and they’re truly delicious! The mother of the bride (Pam) baked up 460 of these right before the wedding. Then bagged them all into 2” gusseted bags. A true feat! They turned out super cute! 

In addition, Pam, who is a fairly new crocheter, also did up these adorable bridal dolls that look exactly like the bride and groom. Aren’t they incredible? I’m thoroughly impressed and they looked so good. Here’s a couple of pictures ~~

With a close up….

Thanks for popping by! I hope your weekend was as amazing as ours was!!

Carmen

Backyard Foraging

I’ve just come in from my garden bringing small handfuls of flowers to dry. Gosh I’m having so much fun! I’m so happy my husband is a good gardener, because I’m not, but I’m loving the fact I can do something with the plants. It’s like foraging, but just in my yard. I may be kind of a fake forager but hey, why go somewhere else if I don’t have to?

So here’s some of what I’ve been gathering. I labelled them for you In the photo. I’d already bottled the rose hips, but those tiny flowers are wild roses. They smell heavenly but they’re pretty small. I picked those yesterday morning so they’re partially dry already. 

All of these things will be made into either oils, tinctures, salves, teas or Potpourris. 

I decided to make a couple of things while I’m waiting to gather up my botanicals. Below is an eye serum, and a hot flash roller. 

I started getting hot flashes at 50, and I’m still getting them. The hot weather doesn’t help and tends to set them off, as does wearing a mask, oddly! This stuff seems to be working pretty well for me!

The eye serum is to help with dark circles under your eyes. Mine aren’t that bad, but I’d rather use something natural that’ll resolve the issue than slather on a bunch of chemicals. I guess the caffeine stimulates and gets rid of the darkness. 

I always knew coffee was good for me. Hahaha

I will add the recipes for these two near the bottom of this post. 

In the meantime, our heat arrived a month early - - - I am so thankful for central air!! All our igloos have melted now. 

That’s a joke, for those of you who may be wondering. 😂 Not a great joke, but I try. 

So, I am slowly filling up jars and enjoying the thought of doing something with them. I’m scouring through my herb books daily, learning and trying to retain the information, which is almost overwhelming but super interesting. 

You’re probably wondering about the egg shells. I’m thinking about making my own toothpaste because I don’t like the fluoride they put in the store bought ones - - - and I know you can buy them without, but they’re a small fortune and I can make it myself so much cheaper.

The blue spruce needles are for tea (from the tree in my backyard) as are the rose hips. Both have amazing qualities and are good for you. 

I’m going to have to go forage in the backwoods for the pine needles I want for teas. I have to convince my hubby to go with me because there’s bears in them thar woods - - - although we’re more likely to run into deer, to be honest. 

Speaking of animals, my son named one of his chickens after me. I feel honored - - - I think. He says the chicken will provide for him (eggs) like I’ve provided for him most of his life. Of course, that’s a stretch because he left home at 18 and he’s 38 now. (I hope you’re all really bad at math. Let’s pretend I had him at  10 yrs..........actually, no, that’s bad too). Never mind. 

Anyway, here’s the recipes for the Eye Serum: 

Ever Blossom Caffeine Eye Serum

And the recipe for the Hot Flash Oil:

Live Well Zone Hot Flash Oil

 

I hope you’re all having a wonderful day!

Blessings to you and yours!

Carmen

From Soap to Nature

Remember when I used to make soap? Me too, and I really miss it, but my husband has a few sensitivities, and strong scents no matter how pleasant, give him headaches and worse, sometimes migraines. I reluctantly sold many of my supplies years ago. I loved soapmaking, which is basically working with butters and oils, etc. 

The world has been a strange place of late, and I sense a draw to the old ways that were strong and secure and had served us many generations until big business, large governments and oligarchs exploded on the scene and gained control. As many perks as that has brought, I still long for some of the old ways and the old days when people seemed friendlier, more courteous, considerate of young and old, and more self sufficient.

I guess that’s what eventually led to this interest. So for my birthday this year I bought a couple of books and began picking dandelions. Just the heads for now.

I have plans. But I didn’t stop there- - -

Meet my Echinacea Purpurea, also known as cone flower.

Here we have St. John’s Wort in the foreground and French Lavender in the back. These are in pots now and doing well.

And here  I’ve started some basil and peppermint. 

Yes, I’m growing and drying my own herbs and plants. I will be drying, making oils and salves, potpourris and teas. I’m quite excited as I just needed something new and useful to do. Oh, I also have a gorgeous Aloe Vera plant I will be putting to good use. 

Also this

This is sage. It grows wild around here and there’s tons of it on our back hill. These can be dried and used as culinary sage, but they can be made into smudge sticks as well. I’m actually drying them in the dehydrator Right now, but will try hanging some to dry too. 

We also have lilac bushes in the back yard. I’ve dried a bunch of the flowers. On the left is a jar of dried dandelion flowers. Both jars are full now.

And these are calendula petals (pot marigold) and dehydrated ginger root. I have a jar with coffee inside infusing in almond oil inside my cupboard as well. Plus there’s some basil and peppermint air drying. My house smells pretty good. 

I bought some supplies and containers using my old soap contacts and am almost ready to go. Also, here are the books I picked up. Apparently Rosemary Gladstar is a herb whisperer of sorts, so I bought these first two of hers. Then a good friend brought me the last book, which I’m enjoying as well.

What I found interesting is that some of the essential oils I will be using are different than the ones I used for soap making. More expensive, some of them, but just lovely!

I will be sharing what I make with all of these in the near future.

Thanks for stopping by!

Blessings to you and yours,

Carmen