Winter Solstice

Bright Blessings this fine Yule.

This morning I rose early with the other half, woke the dog, made a flask of hot water and made a bacon sandwich for him and a vege sausage sandwich for me.

We set off upto the Weardale to catch the last of the luna eclipse and to watch the sunrise and welcome the Sun back, and so begins the process of rebirth. The nights will begin to get shorter and the days longer, now is the time to feast and be merry and snuggle down and wait for spring to arrive. It is a time of reflection and planning the time ahead.

This year we have been truly blessed that a luna eclipse coincided with the solstice. It was a wonderful sight and not something I will ever witness again in this lifetime. Unfortunately my camera would not show what I saw and made the large moon shrink to almost a dot. I'm glad I was able to witness such an wonderful phenomena.

I love watching the sunrise, I miss it most of the time as I also love my bed and when in my bed the bed wins. However as it was such a special solstice this time round I made the effort to go find a spot high(ish) up to view the light coming back to the earth.

Today I'm a little blissed by the whole thing. I'm going to float around the entire day.

Here's a little pic of how the pip squeak is worshipping the sun. I like her way actually, when I finish work I may join her. lol

Christmas/Yule cake

This is my Yule cake (Christmas cake). I love my Ivy decorations, its similar to my wedding cake.

Craft Fair

Today mum and I attended a craft fair at a local community centre. I thought I'd share a few piccies.

The day was incredibly quiet, we put it down to the fact that as people have been stuck inside for so long due to the bad weather they'd taken advantage of today's good weather to go stock up and do their Christmas shopping.

Gave me an opportunity to knit another hat though.

Hats

Here's the hat I made last night, I have hats in several colours now and hoping they will sell. This is the first one to be modelled by the head.

Today I received a head in the post.

Today I received a head in the post, and before you gasp in horror it's a polystyrene head so that I may display my hats for sale. Its fantastic.

Its been driving my dog mad though, she doesn't seem to like it and has spent 10 minutes barking and growling at it, bouncing and then running away, much to my husband and my amusement. She's not one for barking so to hear she has a bark is quite a rarity but the head brought out her Big dog bark. Bless her.

I can't wait to get some pictures of my head wearing some of my hats.

Lip Balms

I am being rather experimental at the moment, and saw a recipe in a magazine for making my own lip balms. So I ordered the ingredients and set to.

The recipe came from MakeScents (Issue one) and the ingredients include:

15-17g Cosmetic grade Beeswax

33g Shea Butter

15g Cocoa Butter

33ml Sweet Almond Oil

5ml flavouring oil (mine was honey)

and the result.

10 little 15ml pots of lip balm and some left over which now sits in my fridge waiting for a spare pot to go in. The picture only shows the 5 I have left, the others have been either given as gifts of given in return for a donation.

They smell delicious and taste just as good. I need to buy some more containers and will be experimenting with essential oils to see what I end up with.

Guess what family and friends are getting from now on as gifts. I may look to sell these also but need to check on the insurance and legal gubbins.

Frou Frou

This is a little Frou Frou Ballerina Cardigan I made a little while ago. It was intended as a gift for someone's little one, but by the time I'd finished it unfortunately the little one was not so little and so wouldn't have fit her. Its therefore gone on my Facebook page "A Hint of Magick" to be sold. I have enough wool to do the next size up so that will be for sale as soon as its done.

Its a sweet little cardigan don't you think?

Pot pourri

I'm full of experimentalness at the moment, I've recently made some pot pourri for the festive season.

Ingredients include:

4/5 dried orange slices

2/3 cinnamon quills

2tsp cloves

1tsp allspice

10 drops of orange essential oil

10 drops of clove bud essential oil

10 drops of frankincense essential oil

Place all in a tub for about a week, longer if possible. Arrange on a plate. I've added 2 oranges which I've cut in half and a orange/clove permander.

Smells lovely. Its currently sitting beneath my Christmas tree in my living room.

Soap making

I recently started making soaps, I ordered a bucket of soap base online. It was on special offer, I didn't think about how much a 20kg bucket actually was so was surprised and amused when the order arrived. Its palm oil free and clear, which means its easy for me to add bits to the soaps if I desire.

I've made a selection of soaps so far including

Rosemary Essential Oil (with Rosemary bits in) soap, Frankincense, Neroli and Rose Essential Oil soap, and I had an experiment with some Mixed Spice which I had in the kitchen. Doesn't look too pretty but its a yummy smell.

I had a request from my sister to make some black pepper soaps. Here they are setting, again not too pretty but they smell peppery.

I'm continuing to play with different scents, but you can guess what the family will have included in their Christmas stockings this year.

Randomness - How to wrap a cat

I wish my cat's were this sedate.