Book Review- Healing Herbs

I'm a big fan of foraging and using the things that grow wild around my neighborhood, so this is a book that I was very interested in reading.

Healing Herb's- A Beginner's Guide to Identifying, Foraging and Using Medicinal Plants is a lovely collection that's great for beginners because it covers easily identifiable plants and has recipes and tips for using them. Tina Sams has a blog and a magazine called The Essential Herbal and is very knowledgeable in her field. The photographs in this book are clear and gorgeous.

Starting with my favorite- dandelions, which are close to the end of the book.

The dandelion chapter is being used as my example of why this is a great book because I really love dandelions.

Each chapter starts with some history and scientific information about the plant, along with the medicinal uses. Then it gets into recipes! The recipes included are ways to incorporate easily found "weeds" into your skin care regime and diet.

Recipes include an infused skin care oil, dandelion fritters, dandelion root cocoa, a tea for PMS symptoms, green eggs and an infused vinegar.

I love the way this book is laid out, and the flowers and plants chosen for inclusion. There are recipes I've never tried before like gulkand, an uncooked rose petal preserve. The book includes things that can be found in your yard like plantain and dandelions, and a lot of things that can be easily grown or ordered if they don't grow wild in your area. For example, lavender doesn't grow easily here, but there is so much wild chamomile in my neighborhood that I've never even considered planting it in my yard. Raspberries grow wild up here, but I also have my own little thicket.

Chamomile

There were some things not included, so I'm hoping for a sequel that will have recipes for things like shepherd's purse and spruce tips, but I'm really happy with what is included.

If you're someone just getting into foraging and wild crafting, this is a lovely book full of great photos, information and recipes. If you're more experienced and have a good library already, this may not have any new information for you but it's still a very pretty book. 

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The Essential Herbal Magazine

Fair Winds Press

Shala's Beadwork and Printables (me!)

Amazon.com affiliate links don't affect your cost, and provide extra income to me personally, which helps support this site.

I received a complimentary copy of this book to review, I received no other compensation, and my review is my honest opinion of the book. You can read more about my review policy here.

Flower photos

Just a quick post to share some flower photos I took in June. All of these are size at 5x5 inches, 300 dpi, and you have my permission to use the photos in non-commercial projects. Click on the images to see them full sized. I'm really wild about how well the spiral in the button center of the daisy shows!

Alaskan Fry Bread- printable recipe!

Alaskan Fry Bread  Serves 8

Alaskan fry bread is different than fry bread down south. Instead of being made with baking powder, water, flour and salt, it is made with yeast, flour, dry milk,water, salt, and usually some sort of sweetener. Just like a yeast bread recipe.
Traditionally, I've seen it served hot with a drizzle of honey, or with jam made from local berries.

The first recipe I learned was:

1 cup of milk lukewarm (made with 1/4 cup instant dry milk and luke warm water)
2 tsp. yeast or 1 envelope
2 Tbs. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
3-4 cups flour

shortening or oil to fry it in

Sprinkle yeast in the milk, let it set for a couple minutes to make sure the yeast is alive. If the milk gets a bit foamy, it's alive.
Stir sugar and salt into the milk, then add 2 cups of flour and stir it in.
Slowly add the rest of the flour, when you can't stir, knead it in. You might need a handful more or less of flour.

Set in a greased bowl, cover and let rise for one hour.
After it rises, punch it down, and split the dough into 2, then each of those pieces in 2,then each of those pieces in 2. 8 balls total. Roll the pieces into a ball shape and pat and pull them flat. Cut 3 or 4 lines through the dough and stretch it out slightly.
Set the pieces aside and heat up the oil.
Again, traditionally, Crisco is used because it kept well. I use canola oil.
Put 3 inches of oil in a heavy big skillet. Heat it up.
When the oil is hot*, put in the dough, a couple pieces at a time. Fry until it's golden on one side, flip over and fry the other side.
When it's golden on both sides, pull out and set to drain on a couple paper towels.

*Mom always checked the oil by sprinkling a bit of water in on her finger tips. When it skittered, the oil was hot enough. I don't recommend this method because it's just barely possible it could cause a grease fire by causing oil to come out of the pan

Well, I love baking bread. I make up recipes for bread regularly. So it was only natural that at some point I'd start playing with my old fry bread recipe. My family is wild for whole wheat breads, and I like fry bread plain. Nothing on it, but just a little sweeter.

So here's my family's fry bread recipe:
Again, we do use instant dry milk.

1 cup luke warm milk
2 tsp. yeast
1/4 cup honey!
1 tsp. salt
3-4 cups of whole wheat flour

shortening or oil to fry it in

Same steps, and sometimes I'll add in a bit of cinnamon. It's one of my favorites for packing along when we go hiking or on a day trip. I'll pack it layered in an air tight box between paper towels. That helps keep it very soft.

A little history, if you want to skip it, just scroll down to the printables!
My mother came up to Alaska in the 60s as a Vista volunteer. It was one of the best times in her life. She taught school in villages, and came away from it with a deep abiding love for Alaska, and the people and way of life up here. And the occasional craving for Spam and pilot bread. The first recipe is the one I learned from her.
The beadwork on the printable is based on Athabaskan beadwork. I'm half Athabaskan so it seemed appropriate. Athabaskan beadwork before missionaries and traders was based on geometric patterns. That changed with missionaries and glass seed beads. Now most traditional Athabaskan beadwork is floral motifs done in couching method on moose hide or other rough tanned leather. The motif I chose is Alaska's prickly rose.
The printables are at 100 ppi, click on the images to get the full sized version. If you print them on US letter sized paper at 100% they will have perfectly even borders.

Blank version

Alaska boxes and photos

I haven't done photo boxes since last summer. I hope you like these. I just resized some of my photographs to fit the cube templates to make these. Click on the images for the full sized 100 ppi printables.

The last one was an accidental photo.I was trying to take a picture of a raven in flight but it was too fast for me to get focused on it. So I wound up with a picture of the branches of the tree overhead!

Here are the photos. If you click on the images you'll get the 50% sized version.  You can use the photos for personal non-commercial use.

All taken with my HS10 Fujifilm camera.

Fairy Parties review and Wild Rose printable box

I recently got Fairy Parties by Colleen Mullaney to review.
A lot of girls go through a fairy phase. I'm not sure I ever actually got out of it. This book is all about creating a perfect fairy themed party .The introduction is only a couple of pages, explaining the basics and a bit of the history of fairies. The chapters are separated by fairy types and the instructions and recipes are planned for a party of 6 girls. The range of fairy types should suit any girl who loves fairies.It's not all pink and froth or wild woods, there are some great variations and ideas.
Each chapter has costume instructions including a skirt, a top,decorated shoes and a wand. The chapters also have game suggestions, a craft or two, and recipes to fit the theme.
The first chapter, Fairy Sweet is a confection of pink, froth and so very feminine. The drink is a pink punch decorated with sparkling pink decorator's sugar and the costumes are very flowery.
The second theme is Sugar Plum Fairies, a purple theme with fruity drinks and tarts and a lot of sparkle.
Rainbow Flower Fairies is a multicolor summery party, and where the first two chapters had decorated ballet slippers, this one has decorated sneaker type shoes to suit a garden theme. Fruit kabobs and rainbow parfaits, it's a very colorful party.
Fairies Rock is for the Diva Fairy. Think rhinestones and hot pink, feather boas wands and stylish elastic headbands. If Fairy Sweet would thrill your average 5 year old, this one suits older girls. The foods include pizza purses and a pomegranate punch.
The last theme is Woodland Fairies. This one is my favorite, and I'm going to adapt some of the ideas adult sized for going to this years Renaissance Fair. It's a good party for outdoorsy girls, and like the Fairies Rock theme, appropriate for girls who are in the tween set. Flower crowns and bare feet with ankles wrapped in ribbons and flowers. The foods are pizza, strawberry punch and a trail mix.
The final chapters are a collection of fairy themed crafts and one with more games. Some of the crafts can be done by girls with some adult supervision, but most of them are better done by adults to set up for the party. There are only a few games, but they include instructions for setting up a maypole for little fairies to dance around.
You can get Fairy Parties from Chronicle Books or from Amazon.The Amazon link is an affiliate link and helps pay some of the costs of maintaining this site.

Another 100 ppi 3x3x1" box. I'm playing with a couple effects and really liked the thorny look so I put a couple wild roses on it and put it on a box. I hope you like it too.

BeadTool4

I recently wrote a review of BeadTool 4 that you can find here on the BellaOnline beadwork site. I'm really impressed with it. In the article I used some pictures I took of mushrooms to show how nicely the photo conversion works.
I just used one of those wild rose pictures I took this summer and converted it to a 50x50 peyote stitched pattern.

This is the photo I used.

 

The realistic bead image, set at size 12 for export.

 

Indexed, unshaded beads, same pattern. It also generated a color list.

1-DB-1482 Transparent Lt Rose Luster Count:666
2-DB-1267 Matte Transparent Olive Count:402
3-DB-1484 Transparent Lt Moss Green Luster Count:148
4-DB-279 Lined Green/Maroon Luster Count:409
5-DB-310 Jet Black Matte Count:69
6-DB-436 Galvanized Pewter Count:46
7-DB-1406 Transparent Pale Grey Count:49
8-DB-1497 Opaque Lt Sky Blue Count:12
9-DB-281 Lined Pale Blue/Magenta Luster Count:50
A-DB-1054 Matte Metallic Violet/Gold AB Count:18
B-DB-422 Metallic Magenta  Count:226
C-DB-1310 Transparent Fuchsia Count:142
D-DB-1340 Silver Lined Bright Fuchsia Count:54
E-DB-1184 Galvanized SF Magenta Count:62
F-DB-355 Matte Rose Count:91
G-DB-157 Opaque Cream AB Count:41
H-DB-121 Dark Topaz Gold Luster Count:15
As usual, click on the images for the full sized view. I really really like this program. It won't replace the way I usually graph, but for photo conversion it's really wonderful.

Flower Circle Tags

Right click and choose save target as the PDF file HERE, which has 4 of each design, the wild roses, forget-me-nots and daisies. They are 300 dpi and print out beautifully.
I used a 2 inch circle punch to cut them out. First I cut the 3 strips of tags so the edges were close enough to fit in my punch, then turned my punch over to get the design centered, there is some bleed so you've got a bit of leeway.
You can either use double sided tape to stick them to things, or you can use a regular sized hole punch to punch a hole in them tie them to things.
I've already got some ideas for Halloween tags, but that's still a bit off!

The earrings in the picture- I posted a similar pattern to the alien pair with a tutorial on beading in brick stitch here. You can buy the cherry pie and chocolate covered strawberry patterns in my Etsy shop here for 5.00 USD, and the pattern set includes the 2 pairs shown, chocolate chip cookies, ice cream cones, and lollipops.

Wild Roses

Wild roses are one of my favorite signs of summer. Since I've got the original black them, being able to find them when we are out walking is nice. I was working on a braid for a box just to see if the technique I'd worked out for them would work and wanted another element for the box.Yesterday while I was walking to gym I saw a wild rose and snapped a picture of it with my phone, and when I got home, I used the photo as a model to draw one for this box. I hope you like it. As usual, click on the image to get the full sized version.