A Little Update & My Handmadeology Feature

Hello friends!  I've missed you!  It's been a long couple weeks...  It seems weird to just jump right back into things, so I just thought I'd say hi and give you guys a little update.

The great news is that I had a bunch of much needed work these past couple weeks (both framing and theater work!).  The bad news is that there's a bit of stress going on right now as Scott & I wrestle with a difficult decision.  I can't really talk about it right now, but when we figure things out, I'll share.

In the meantime, I have a bit of fun news!  My Recycled Spoon Garden Markers Tutorial is featured over on Handmadeology!  It's right on the front page!  I don't know how long it will be there, so the direct link to the post can be found here.  I'm so excited!

Okay, I promise to try and get back into the swing of things and start posting regularly again.  =)

Warrior Salve for Sore Muscles, Strains, Sprains, and Bruises

I've talked about it off and on here at the blog and often on twitter but as of a few weeks ago, my Warrior Salve for Sore Muscles, Strains, Sprains, and Bruises was finally made available in my Artfire Studio and in my Etsy shop!  This salve is perfect for athletes, weekend warriors, and everyone in between primarily for helping relieve sore muscles.

This is a recipe that I developed last year while I was training for the Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the Cure.  My training consisted of walking around 500 miles in preparation for the event where I walked 60 miles over the course of three days in order to raise awareness of the fight against breast cancer.  I had a lot of problems with my feet in training and know many walkers who had very, very sore muscles not to mention strains and sprains.  My Warrior Salve was inspired by these walkers that kept going no matter what, knowing that they were walking for something much bigger than themselves and their pain.


I asked some of my 3 Day walker friends to test out my Warrior Salve, knowing that I couldn't find a better group of people to really put it to the test and give me honest feedback.  The feedback was overwhelmingly positive.


-I LOVE this muscle salve! I've been able to use it on a few different types of muscle pain (e.g., tired muscles, sore muscles, and injured muscles) and found the salve to be effective on each type. Most pains were alleviated after one use while more severe injuries felt improvement over a couple days. And best of all...no stinky medicine smell! ~ Jami


-You need some of @AthenasArmoury's sore muscle salve. It's *amazing* and works on everything from torn ligaments to bruises. ~Pam

Pain relieving, anti-spasmodic organic herbs were infused in medicinal olive oil and blended with essential oils and beeswax to create this salve.   Just rub a little in where you feel sore (the rubbing is an added bonus of giving yourself a little massage) and wait for the herbs to work their magic.

What's the Dirt on Dirt? Filling the Raised Garden Bed

I've been thinking A LOT lately about dirt, soil, organic matter, compost, manure, microorganisms, soil amendments, etc.  It's been a while since we finished building the raised garden bed and since then, we've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what's going to go in it.  Not the fun stuff like plants, herbs, or veggies but the soil.  We're probably making this harder than we have to, but I think we're just a bit overwhelmed because we want to make sure we do it right.

We have another yard project going on that will require us to dig up a whole mess of dirt, so we were originally planning on incorporating some of that into the garden bed.  We figured it would be a good way of upcycling something and also help us keep our costs down so that we don't have to buy as much of the amendments to make it good soil.

I sent a soil sample in to Florida's Extension Office to be tested and found out that our soil is a little too alkaline and that I would need to add some organic matter to increase the acidity.  Okay, I get that but at what ratio?  I spoke to a nice guy at the Extension office and he said to mix it half and half with compost.  Apparently, you can never have too much compost.  Needless to say, I was still feeling a bit unsure about all of this.

The next step in my journey to learn about dirt was at an organic soil prep workshop.  One of the first things that the Master Gardener made us understand is that grass is persistent.  Unless you completely pull up ALL of the roots, you will not get rid of it and it will grow back.  This is why when you compost grass, it should only be grass clippings and not roots: you don't want your compost bin or where you incorporate your compost to start sprouting grass.  The areas that are going to be dug up in our yard won't be terribly deep, so we figured that unless we spend A LOT of time sifting that dirt it won't be terribly useful thanks to that persistent grass.

Ultimately, it looks like we're going to be ordering a few yards of organic soil to fill the raised garden bed.  This way, we know that it's exactly what the plants need, don't have to worry about figuring out the right proportions of things to add to our soil, and it will save us time and energy so we can focus on our other project.

We're in the middle of the hottest and wettest time of year down here, so I think we're going to wait until some time in September or even October maybe to get the bed filled.  I don't want to plant any new greenlings in this and have them stressed before they even have a fighting chance to grow.  Not to mention, I don't want to work in this heat, either!

I've been learning a lot about amendments to the soil, mulching, feeding, and watering, too.  But that's for another day and another blog post.

Simple Joy Sunday

Some happy highlights of the week...

Spent an afternoon floating in the pool and enjoying a beer.  It was so relaxing.  Basically, my summertime equivalent of a hot bath in the winter.

Graphic design continues to be a challenge for me, but I learn a little something every time I play.  Artfire's new studio design forced me to play again since the banner size changed.  I'm pretty satisfied with how it came out.  It's very simple, but it works.

They also gave us a few more ways of customizing the shop.  Let me know what you think!

One night this week, my honey greeted me at the door with a Long Island Iced Tea.  That was awesome.

I signed up for another website that will offer me sponsored blog posts.  Nothing has come of it yet, but I'm excited about adding another one to my arsenal.  As always, I promise I won't falsely review anything and will always cover sponsored posts with my own unique angle that will, hopefully, be interesting to my readers.  Times are tough, work-wise, so every little bit really helps a lot.

I'm still loving the 30 Day Shred!  Yup, Level 3 is a challenge, but it makes me feel strong whenever I do it and that definitely makes me happy.

I did a number on my nerves when I got my part time job schedule for the coming week.  Hours are getting less and less (for all of us in the department) and theater work has pretty much come to a freaking halt for me.  I'm really, really starting to get worried.  But, I went out one night with a friend from the Herb Society and had a chance to decompress.  We both needed it.  I'm really grateful to have her friendship.

I joined a new street team on Etsy: Tampa Bay Etsy Crew.  I'm hoping that this will be a way of meeting local crafters, forming some friendships, and maybe even a good resource for finding out about shows.

Scott & I attended a free soil prep workshop.  I'll have to tell you more about that in a different post!

What made you happy this week?  Please share in the comments!