T Stands for Elderberry Tea

Himself and I have been sharing the never ending cold from Hell. We've been this way since the middle of December. You think you start to feel better and wham! Stuffy nose, feeling tired and blah. At least this time around we're not coughing up our souls. 

I thought I'd try to give the cold the heave-ho by brewing some elderberry tea. I got the recipe here. The recipe is very simple. Just 3 ingredients and you can customize it for your taste. You will need:

2 cups of water

2 T. of dried elderberries

cinnamon stick. (I didn't have a cinnamon stick so I used a teaspoon of ground cinnamon)

You can customize the recipe to your taste. I added 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger and 1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves.

Bring the elderberries and spices to a boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Take your pan off the heat to cool for 5 minutes.

Strain

Elderberries are a bit tart so I like to add honey to sweeten the taste.   Mmmm. very comforting. Hopefully, this will kick the cold to the curb.

What remedies do you use when you're feeling under the weather?

Drop by hosts, Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog to find out what the rest of the T Stands For gang is up to. If you want to play, include in your Tuesday post a beverage or container for a beverage. Don't forget to link your blog to Bleubeard and Elizabeth's page.

Thinking of You Card and Envelope

 

Playing with the Kawaii kitties, I made a "Thinking of You" card for my cousin. Thanks to Jean at Pushing the Envelopes for showcasing so many stealworthy designs and ideas.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

The Watcher

Storm #2

A loud bang while I was in the studio made me jump. Did the Young One fall? Nope. Kitties were sleeping. Outside the window, I could see traffic slowing and coming to a stop in front of the house. What happened? A tree from the opposite side of the woods fell from the weight of the heavy, wet snow. Fortunately, no wires came down so we didn't lose electricity. A police officer directed one lane of traffic while the town crew removed some of the tree.

The maple is bowed by the heavy wet snow. I was afraid it would crash and take power lines down.

Himself suggested I might want to go out after dinner to shovel the walk as temps. were falling and everything was going to freeze. This would be the second pass on the walk

I also cleared the snow off Moose

another artisan, hand-crafted driveway

I was glad I went out the night before because everything did freeze and driveway was an ice rink

I was prepared as I went out to sand/salt the walk and a path as I was wearing crampons.

Instead of having metal cleats, they had hard rubber so you could wear them indoors without worry of floors being marred.

Always watching

The Gnomes measured about 4 inches of snow. 4.6 inches according to the official total announced during the television weather report.

What the heck is this? After 2 weeks of small storms, and grey skies the sun made a brief appearance before the 3rd storm predicted for this week

Bunny prints

The squirrel running evasive maneuvers

The 3rd storm was a non-starter for my area, but did bring heavy rains which washed most of the 

snow away.

How does your garden grow?

Fun Facts About the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

 

In 1986, Massachusetts school children petitioned to have the Corn Muffin adopted as the state's official muffin.

The Friday Five Good Things

 Five good things that happened this week

1. A chat with Teague to plan another play day.

2. Got the walk and half the driveway shoveled before everything froze

3. Skype with Nan with the idea of meeting at Tower Hill to sketch in the Organgerie.

4. I was going to make a comment about the third storm this week, but don't want to jinx things.

5. Enjoyed the first class of the Book of Marks

Ways to Reuse A Bread Tag or Clip

 

The plastic clip or tab that prevents bread and other baked goods from going stale quickly can be a handy, little tool.

Use it to hold the end of a roll of tape.

Use as a scoring tool

Use as a makeshift bone folder to give your paper a nice crease.

Keep bits of string or ribbon from getting tangled.

Make marks on paste paper, gesso, or texture paste.

Can you think of any other uses?

Whatcha Doin?

Vincent is helping me sort through some papers and stuff to be used as collage fodder for the Book of Marks class tomorrow.

Whatcha doin?

T Stands for Kittea

 

While browsing through Michael's, I saw the book Kawaii Kitties. If you're not familiar with the term "kawaii", it's Japanese and means cute, über cute. As seen in Japanese Anime. Hello, Kitty is kawaii and so is Pusheen from pop culture.

So I splurged on the book and thought I'd have fun with some of the exercises. So for T Day, I'm serving up some kittea treats.

Drawings done with Micron Pigma pen, Prismacolor Watercolor pencils, Metallic Gelly Roll pen, on Canson Mixed Media paper

Drop by hosts, Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog to find out what the rest of the T Stands For gang is up to. If you want to play, include in your Tuesday post a beverage or container for a beverage. Don't forget to link your blog to Bleubeard and Elizabeth's page.

National Handwriting Day

 

Today, 23. January, is National Handwriting Day. Grab a pen, pencil, or crayon. Write a note to yourself, take a memo, write out your grocery list or a to do list. Write a letter to your mother, your senator, your spouse or significant other. Write in your journal. Use your own handwriting and celebrate written communication.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

A dusting of nuisance snow

The sky was supposed to look like red sky in the morning, sailor take warning, but because of the thick cloud cover, the light looked weird.

Harvey must have lost electricity at some point, but his heart is akin to mine. Look at that feels like 97 oF temperature. If only!

Puffed up bunny because of the cold or pregnant?

A proper red sky in the morning

The Wetterhaus had stopped working, but a change of location, and the humidifier and it's working again. The Herr made several appearances this week due to inclement weather.

Another passing storm. The snow didn't accumulate on paved surfaces

just grassy surfaces. 

Barely an inch. Which is fine by me

Inside, lettuce and 2 tiny, red tomatoes from the hydroponic garden.

How does your garden grow?

Fun Facts About the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Babingtonite crystal (with green prehnite) from Lane & Sons Traprock quarries, Westfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts; photo by Didier Descouens on Wiikipedia (use permitted with attribution / share alike).

In 1981,  Babingtonite was designated the official state mineral. It's a rare mineral and Massachusetts is one of the few places in the world where it is found. The finest quality of crystal is found in Massachusetts out of all 50 of the United States. 

The Friday Five Good Things

 Five good things that happened this week.

1. Calli woke me up in the wee hours crying at the bedroom door. (not really the good thing) She brought me one of her toy mice. (awww, sweet)

2. Got my haircut. No wait.

3. Andy made my day  😺

4. The good news is Himself doesn't have pneumonia or Covid. Just another bad cold to deal with

5. Fun trip to Michael's to browse items for a mixed media class.

How was your week?

Two Envelope Booklet

At the end of September I was watching a live video on Facebook by Lindsay Waltman-Ostram, Creator of Cuteness. She made a booklet using two envelopes. The envelopes had pockets which could be filled with all sorts of things.

The booklet was perfect because I needed to send a thank you card to a friend for sending me an awesome gift.

I had two coordinating pieces of scrapbook paper so I made my own envelopes. You can use any size envelopes as long as the envelopes you choose are the same size.

Lindsay made a paper button and thread enclosure which I liked, and I added the black cat charm since my friend was also owned by a black cat.

The envelopes form two pockets. I added some art papers on one side and a thank you card on the other

Tags and some chipboard and a small envelope on top with a couple of black cat cutouts.

I also tacked on a square of waxed paper to hold some washi tape and

some fun buttons. The bread tabs are a handy tool. I use them on the ends of tape, They also make a quick and dirty bone folder and scoring tool. The cocktail forks are great for mixing up glues and paint.

All in all I was pleased with how it turned out. If you'd like to try your hand at making this structure, you can watch Easy 2 Envelope Flip Book on YouTube.

Whatcha Doin?

 

I'm cleaning and organizing the pantry.

Whatcha doin?