Fuming Workshop with Kenan Tiemeyer

 

CLASS DATES 3/10 & 11

CLASS DATES 3/12 & 13- FULL

Want to increase your gold and silver fuming skills? Improve your marble, pendant, bead making abilities? Learn how to make really tight honeycomb patterns?  Then, this class is for you.  Join TGR in welcoming Kenan Tiemeyer for a two-day workshop in learning all these skills.  The focus of this two-day class will be on marbles, beads, pendants with the use of gold and silver fume as well as encasement of opals and the building of optical layers in pendants / marbles. 

Kenan Tiemeyer is from Floyd, Virginia.  He has demoed at the Art Glass Invitational (AGI) in Hilliards, PA and has written many articles for The Glassline Magazine.  Kenan has also traveled to Europe and other foreign countries demonstrating his techniques.

 Details

•  Students must be at an intermediate level working with glass

•  Students have experience with pulling points, working with tubing, and even "inside out" techniques

•  Class MUST have at least 5 students in order to hold class - Maximum student level is 8

•  Bring your tools, gold & silver, and opals if you already have them.  Glass needed for class is provided.  Gold & silver and opals will be available for the class (in a limited quantity) and for purchase.

• Class will be from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM on all dates

My husband rarely teaches classes, so this is your chance to learn his fuming techniques. 3/12-13 classes are filled, but there are only a few spots left on 3/11-12! Head over to The Glass Resort LLC to reserve your spot! 

*reblogged from http://www.theglassresortllc.com/

Apply to Host a Healthy Baby Home Party from Seventh Generation!

If we can get monsters out of closets, bring toys back to life, and heal scrapes with a kiss, we can get toxins out of our kids.

What is a Healthy Baby Home Party? 

Seventh Generation's home parties are powered by people like you who are focused on creating a healthy environment for the next generation. Developed with input from non-profit partner, Healthy Child Healthy World, they are a great way to get together with friends, share helpful information, and make an impact!

Healthy Baby Home Party kits are provided to all selected hosts and are filled with educational info about our environment, helpful tips, a fun game, and samples and coupons from Seventh Generation and other favorite family-friendly brands like bobble, Plum Organics and Zarbee's Naturals.

What is the Application Process?

• Sign up at generationgood.net to join the Generation Good community, or log in if already a member.
• Accept the Healthy Baby Home Party Application offer on your Generation Good dashboard and complete the application.
• Applicants will be notified by end of March if they have been selected to host a party, via an email to the email address assigned to their Generation Good member profile.
• All selected applicants will then need to confirm their participation by accepting the Healthy Baby Home Party Mission in Generation Good and confirming their shipping address.
• 1,900 FREE Party Kits will be distributed in this round.
• Hosting spots are open to US residents only at this time. Canadian parties are planned for later in 2016!
• Full terms and conditions are available within Generation Good in the "Healthy Baby Home Party Application" offer.

My kids are no longer babies, so i've never hosted a Healthy baby home party, but i've been using Seventh Generation products for years. 

If you are expecting or have little ones at home and are interested in getting toxins out of your home,  Sign up today!

*By posting this information i'll be entered to win a Healthy baby home party kit. i occasionally receive free product samples in exchange for my review. My opinions are my own. 

Around the homestead- reflecting back on a good year and new year goals.

It's so hard to believe that it is 2016. The older i get the quicker time seems to move.  We are now almost 3 years post fire, and life is pretty much back on track. We have found our new normal, and are slowly turning this house into a home.

For Thanksgiving this year, almost everything came from the garden. i did purchase a Tofurky roast, which is more of a novelty than anything. It wasn't necessary for our meal, but we enjoy them and like the idea of a very 'traditional' thanksgiving meal even though we are vegetarian. Our meal included roasted roast vegetables, butternut squash soup, Acorn squash stuffed with apples, pecans and honey. Fresh salad, garlicy greens and pumpkin pie. 

My hens took a little time off to molt and rest over the winter, but now that the sun is returning they have begun to lay again. i'm really thrilled with the variety i'm getting now. Still just missing the blue. i took this photo in the snow and the colors really just popped.  i don't think i'll ever get tired of taking egg pictures. 

Just like every year, i had a lot of issues in the garden. We had a really wet  rainy summer, and it caused the diseases like Septoria leaf spot, early blight and powder mildew to spread like crazy. i harvest quite a bit, but it felt like i lost a lot as well.  Even though i was canning all summer, the canned goods were just stored in boxes and hidden away in the basement, so i really didn't know what all i had.  It kind of left me feeling like i had wasted the whole summer for nothing.

Then Kenan put in these shelves in the cold storage area downstairs and we pulled out all the canned goods and set them up on the shelves.  This is the first time ever i've had a pantry to store all of my canned goods. The shelves are  24" deep, so i can store a ton of food.  i also have my potatoes, sweet potatoes, winter squash, onions and garlic in the baskets.  Below the shelves are storage bins with holiday decorations and craft supplies.  It's a pretty amazing feeling to see it all laid out like this and to really recognize all of the hard work i did over the summer. 

This spring we are planning to get a real greenhouse, fence the garden and really try to improve the soils in our gardens. We are also going to work on improving the goats area, and setting up our cistern to be solar powered. Kenan is also talking about getting an overflow tank for cistern.  That way we would have an almost unlimited supply of water for garden irrigation.

 We had also originally talked about putting in a second well, since ours is low flow and really doesn't produce enough water for our household, especially as the kids get older and want to shower more often. However after doing a bit of research, we are instead going to try to tap into two artisan spring heads that are behind the house.  The goal is to set up a 1500 gallon potable water tank using solar powered water pumps.

So yeah, we have a lot of plans for the year.  i will try to document our progress, but it seems more and more difficult to find the time to put together these posts. Even now in the winter when i have more time, i spend it working on dolls, jewelry or in the glass shop.  i'll be posting about that eventually as well. i'm really excited about the work i am doing this year, and look forward to share

Decorating for the Season

My girl wanted to do the decorating this year. So she went to work making snowflakes to decorate our windows. She has become quite the master at it.

She didn't use a template or anything just snipped a little here and there until she had a bunch of beautiful snowflakes. i did have to help with the folding, but she did all the cutting herself. 

Back in November i came across a picture from this blog and completely fell in love with the winter scene she had created on a window and knew i wanted to do something similar!  My girl made all the snowflakes, and i cut the trees and stars out of cardstock.  The orginial photo had a branch wrapped in lights, but after several small hikes aroundthe property i couldn't find what i wanted. So my window looked rather plain for a couple weeks.

i eventually found a branch that i liked, although not quite long enough it still worked okay. Once the window was totally lit up i feel completely in love with it.  This will be a new tradition for us. Next year i may add the silhouettes of a few woodland creatures, but i love the simplity of this design. It feels peaceful and quiet and respresents the things that i really do love about the winter.  

He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter.... In winter the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of a more exalted simplicity. ~John Burroughs

Digging the Yule tree

Digging the Yule tree is one of my favorite holiday traditions.  We always have a live 'potted' tree that we replant after the new year.  Some trees we are able to dig up year after year until they get too big to dig.  Bringing them in the house to decorate is like welcoming  back an old friend that only visits once a year.

The year that we dug last year, has been struggling to take root. It's still alive, but struggling a bit and i think if we had redug it it would probably die. So we chose to dig a new tree this year.  

We headed over to Deberosa Tree farm, where all the trees were $10 each and they allowed us to dig one.  Most of the trees were very large, and we wandered around for quite a while before deciding on our perfect tree. 

All over the tree farm we found praying mantis egg cases. Some had already hatched out, but many were new and would not hatch until the spring.  Although with our unseasonable warm winter, i wouldn't be surprised if they hatch early.  This little case can contain hundreds of baby praying mantis that all hatch out at once. 

We were very happy with our tree, loaded it up and headed home.

The kids did all the decorating this year. i never did get around to making any gingerbread ornaments, so it looked a little bare this year.

No one seemed to mind though, and we all thought it looked beautiful.  Our decorations are all pretty simple. Glass balls in blue and silver, handblown glass icicles,pine cones decoratd in glitter, acorn shaded bells, and silver butterflies.  i also added some dried citrus slices and typically decorate it in gingerbread as well.

 Yule trees are brought inside to provide a warm and festive place for tree elementals who inhabited the woodland. They are also a good way to coax the native faery folk to participate in Solstice rituals.  :) The greenery of the yule tree is symbolic of the hope for the sun's return.

i embrace these traditons and rituals as a way to stay positive during the hard of winter. Celebrating the season, gives us hope and helps us to recognize the beauty in all seasons. 

The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory.

Gary Zukav