I am so thrilled to finally have some plants in the ground. We have been creating our spot, amending soil and planning for the last month.  I think I have been talking about growing a garden for years!! Thanks to my good friend and neighbor, we finally got moving.

I went plant shopping a few days ago and bought several lettuces, spinach, kale, broccoli and some herbs. Yesterday we planted and got dirty.

This will be a huge learning process for us, but I’m so happy to be trying.

Now, I have a strong desire to decorate my little garden space. Maybe a dragonfly, banner, planter markers and flower plates? I’ve been collecting ideas HERE.

I had a beautiful day.  Hubby is home, no work, feeling great and I went out this morning with a friend.

These first two pictures were taken at my kid’s school. They have a gorgeous campus with beautiful desert bushes and flowers every where.  They hasve a little chair sitting under a tree, such a nice place to sit and wait for the kids to get out of school.  Smells so good out there too.

Today, my friend and I went driving around to a few community gardens in town. After seeing all the beautiful garden beds filled with delicious greens, we were both very inspired to get busy and take advantage of our winter growing season.  I am hoping to get my hubby inspired so we can grow spinach, lettuce, kale, garlic, broccoli, beets and arugula.  For reals this time!! We were very much assured that it is not too late to get started. Plus, my new friend who is also my neighbor, will by my new garden buddy.  Together we are going to figure this gardening stuff once and for all and get growing!!!

I’ve been whipping up a few beauty concoctions that I thought I’d share.

* The Queen of Hungary’s Water. A blend of soothing herbs made into an astringent for your face. I use it after I clean my face. It is very refreshing and smells lovely. The recipe is from this AWESOME book.

* Homemade deodorant ~ Amy’s recipe.  This is my 4th batch. Each one lasts about 6 months.

* Magic tooth cleansing solution. Also Amy’s recipe from her last mailorder issue. It’s not bad.  It took a little bit of getting used to, but now I almost prefer it.

***Hair Update*** It’s been 2 months now since I last used shampoo in my hair.  I’m just using the baking soda and water rinse and it is STILL magically working. I really can’t believe it. With the hot weather and me exercising almost daily, I’ve been having to rinse a little more frequently, but that’s okay.

And check out our pretty little tomatoes. We’ve been happily eating a little handfuls every other day or so. My inverted tomato plant is just HUGE!

First my hair. I have been having fantastic luck so far (a lot better than my first go at it). I have not washed for a little over a week and my hair has been great. Just rinsing with the baking soda and water mix every third day.  My hair is soft and very clean looking the first day after rinsing, the second day it looks fine, and the third I have to wear a pony tail or a hat. Then I rinse and it’s nice, clean and soft again. What is interesting, is that I have a bit more wave at the end of my hair than I used to.  My hair has always been very straight with a teeny hint of a wave when it’s long. Now, it has a noticeable wave and curl at the tips. I like it.

The Oil cleansing method (OCM) has been working well too!  I only clean my face this way every other day. On my off days, I just rinse with warm water. So far, no major break outs or anything weird.  My hubby bought me some Sweet Cheeks moisturizer for Mother’s day, which is a bit similar to the olive oil and castor oil mixture I made except it is scented with lavender and rose oil. Plus, it is a bit thicker and less messy. I really like it.

My herbs and tomato plant have been thriving (you can see it before here). I am so excited to see 10 little green tomatoes growing and another 10 or so flowers. Yay! I can’t wait to eat my first cherry tomato. I even have a gulf ball size pomegranate growing and lots of fruiting buds.

* I just bought Amy’s Potions & Concoctions pdf booklet.  It’s really great.  I’ve already been using her deodorant for the last 18 months and I love it. It still sweat a little bit in the summer, but who doesn’t in So.AZ heat?!  I’ll be making the hairspray (I normally don’t use any, but I thought it would be nice to try & play with ),magic teeth cleansing solution, herbal toner, facial oil and bugs don’t bite me balm.  Many of the other recipes will be saved for cold season.

* I just recently learned about OCM (oil cleansing method), I had to try it out. I have to say that IT-IS-DIVINE!  I’ve been cleaning my face this way for about a week and my skin feels soft and actually looks glowing (if I do say so myself).  Normally, I have oily skin in the t-zone with some minor blemishes. I really like how this make my skin feel, not oily at all, just soft and healthy.

* Next, I want to go shampoo free! I tried last year, cold turkey, with horrible results. My hair had a horrible transition period and I gave up. Since then I have been using this shampoo bar, which I really like. I also stopped washing on a daily basis. I’ve always felt I had to because my hair would feel greasy after one day. Now, I feel I can start again, hopefully without the dramatic transition period.  If I need to, I will still wash with my shampoo bar, gradually weaning myself off completely over a period of time. SO-many-people have had wonderful results with this method. It’s really quite fascinating and I’m excited to give it another go.

* Lastly, I just signed up forVintage Savoir Faire’s Summer 2010 Grow-a-long, which involves growing 3 plants (mint, thyme & chamomile-plus a bonus plant) then using these plants to make an assortment of different herbal recipes/remedies. Sounds fun, don’t you think? Hop over to sign -up.

This is an awesome time of the year for us south-westerners. It’s getting warm, but not too warm. No mosquitoes, yet. Lots of sunshine. It’s been so great. It’s hard to not want to be outside. We’ve been eating all our dinners outside, planting new flowers and herbs.

I saw this inverted tomato planter and went out and bought the supplies immediately. I would LOVE to have some yummy sweet cherry tomatoes.  On the top is oregano, lemon thyme and rosemary.

I also planted some sweet basil, pineapple sage and cinnamon basil.  They smell divine.

I got the paints out once again so that I could write Rocky’s name on his home archway.  I think he likes it.

Hope you are enjoying some nice weather too.

I did this sketch a while ago in my art journal, but decided today, to color it in with some acrylic paints and some neo II crayons. Those crayons are really fun to play with. It really stinks that they are so expensive, as is all quality art supplies. I was only able to get a set of 10 for now and have been looking at these panpastels too, which are also quite pricey.

And I wanted to show you these…

My new Elsita bookmarks.  They are beautifully made and very delicate. I thought they would make nice little gifts for some of my book loving friends. I’m having a very hard time deciding which one to keep for myself.

I also got this gift set from Super Salve which I thought, as individual items, would make wonderful stocking stuffers . I love their products which are 100% natural with none of that scary stuff (the calendula lotion & salve is especially soothing on dry skin and cracking finger tips). They smell amazing too! The kids love getting a finger full of lotion to messily smear on themselves so they can smell nice.   And it looks like I just missed their Holiday Sale!!! Rats!!

herbal vinegar, for use as hair rinse and facial astringent

I’ve been making my own shampoo, herbal vinegars and face scrubs.  I feel a little bit like I am making potions. A little Felix Felicis or Pollyjuice potion would be fun to make too, if only I could get the recipes (and a little magic).   Anyway, I’ve had a little bit of help with the basics of natural home and body potions with the following wonderful books.

1. Rosemary Gladstar’s Family Herbal: A guide to living life with energy, health and vitality.  This one is my favorite of the group.  It is truly a classic and Rosemary Gladstar is the mother of herbal body care. I love to just thumb through and read about all of the healthy and natural things you can make and do.

2. Earthly Bodies and Heavenly Hair by Dina Falconi.  This one is a nice compliment to the Family Herbal.

3. Make Your Place, affordable, sustainable nesting skills by Raleigh Briggs.  a completely wonderful and delightful little book with A LOT of good info on health & first aid,  non-toxic cleaning, body care and  gardening.

4. Clean Body: the humble art of zen-cleansing yourself by Michael Dejong. Learn all of the magical wonders of lemon, baking soda, salt and white vinegar.  It is all categorized by body part, which I think is pretty cool!  I won this one from Jessica at Green Mamma and I love it.  Thanks Jessica!!

This is what’s in my potions cabinet.  I have slowly adding to my collection of essential oils and herbs. I keep everything in a little basket so I can pull everything out when I need it.  Someday I’d love to get little apothecary jars for everything.

Also, I actually used this shampoo recipe (with chamomile and lavender) for me & the boys.  I love it so far. Next I am going to try to make lotion!!

Check out our sweet pototo that we have been growing.  He started budding in our pantry in early June and we popped hime into this cool little thrifted vase and he just took off.

We have never been successful at growing a potato.  S0 we are delighted that this one thrived. He was quite thirsty too.  Needed water almost daily–maybe because of our warm climate. We waited a little too long to get him in a pot.  The roots are crazy thick, started taking the shape of the vase.

While we were potting Mr Potato Plant, I decide to get some of my other new plants in pots as well.  A few of them are in biodegradable bamboo pots.  Kind of anxious/excited to see how those work out for us.

Now, does anyone know what will happen next. Will my potato plant give me a new potato?

I’m back from an unexpected little blogging break.  My mom was here last week and we spent some good quality time together with the kids.  I even pulled Super-E out of school one day so we could all have a little fun together.

We had a wonderful time and even did a little planting and terrarium making.  I have been really wanting to incorporate more plants into my home.  I had 5 plants, but dreamt of a magical, lush, green home environment. Plus, they are so good for your health! Unfortunately my cat loves to eat plants, which is one of the reasons I had so few.

Terrariums seem to be the perfect solution for a plant-eating, leaf-puking cat.  After getting THIS great book, I was inspired to start some terrariums of my own.  A little trip to the nursery and to the thrift store for cheap glass containers and we were in business.

I also replanted a few of my house plants into bigger pots and added some chocolate mint and a fern to my home collection. The mini cactus and succulents caught my eye as well. I have been swooning over this amazing succulent collection and I especially like this herb/succulent combo.

Maybe eventually, I can hang some plants from the ceiling to prevent that cat problem.