5th Annual Open Studio with Pottery by Mehg in DeLand

Visit the studio of Mehg Marshall for her 5th annual holiday event in DeLand Florida this Saturday. Pottery making demonstrations will be going on throughout the day. There will be handmade pottery, jewelry, soaps and other body products available from Aquarian Bath as well.

Date: Saturday, November 28, 2009
Time: 10:00am - 3:00pm
Location: 32749 Forrest Drive DeLand, FL 32720

New Holiday Gift Sets Give Away Contest

I have 3 new gift sets available in my Etsy shop. These are mix and match gift sets. You can customize them with the perfumes, soaps and lip balms of your choice. They range in price from $10-23 dollars and may include shipping direct to the recipient with a card if you wish.

Pictured above is the deluxe listing is for your choice of 2 all natural soaps, 2 lip balms, a home grown loofa slice, and a perfume of your choice wrapped as shown in the main photo in a clear gift bag with a ribbon.

For the middle sized gift set you have a choice of an all natural soap, lip balm and perfume of your choice wrapped as shown in the main photo in a clear gift bag with a ribbon.



For The small sized gift set you may choose an all natural perfume and lip balm of your choice wrapped in a clear gift bag with a ribbon. I will be giving away one of these gift sets on December 18th. There are a number of ways that you may enter to win before now and then.



Receive entries for the following activities. Be sure to leave your contact info in your post and let me know about your activities. This contest is open to US and Canadian residents.:
~ 1 entry for leaving a comment with your preferred choice of perfume and lip balm
~ 1 entry for becoming a fan of Aquarian Bath on facebook
~ 1 entry for tweeting this post on twitter include @aquarianbath in your message
~ 3 entries for blogging this post on your blog
~ 3 entries for adding the new Aquarian Bath badge to your blog or website
~ 5 entries for making a purchase from AquarianBath

A winner will be chosen on list randomizer and announced on the blog on December 19th.

December Blog Party! Call for Submissions Herbal Aesthetics: Using Herbs for Beautification

Hello friends! This is a call for herb lovers to contribute to the December Herb Blog party that I will be hosting here at Aquarian Bath on the topic of Herbal Aesthetics. This can be in the area of arts, crafts, dying and painting with herbs, natural beauty care such as how to use henna (pictured to the left), holiday decorating with herbs, etc. Last month's blog party was on coffee, stimulants and morning ritual beverages.

Here is how you can participate:
Write a post on your blog specific to this topic. In your blog post link to AquarianBath.blogspot.com. Send a link to your blog post (and a picture if you wish) to me by December 1st at aquarianbath@gmail.com. I will link to all the submissions with a new blog post December 2nd.

Please feel welcome to share this blog party invitation with others.

Herbal Holiday Stocking Stuffers Class in St. Augustine Saturday December 19th

Join us for a fun-filled day of sipping herb-mulled cider and creating herbal holiday gifts for friends and family. We will be making 4 sets of stocking stuffers with each gift bag including: 2 Peppermint and 2 Cinnamon stick lip balms in lip balm tubes, 4 Herb-infused Winter Dry Skin Shea butter balms infused with fresh picked herbs, and 4 sets of bath teas. We will also make herbal decorations with fresh Rosemary to take home for ourselves! Bring a sack lunch. $40.00 Instructor Cory Trusty call Maggie's Herb Farm to preregister phone 904-829-0722

Saturday, December 19th, 2009
Time: 10:30am - 2:30pm
Location: 11400 County Road 13, St. Augustine, FL

Arts & Crafts in the Fair Share Garden Saturday December 5th

Join us on the first Saturday of December 5th for a morning of Arts & Crafts at the Fair Share Garden in Daytona Beach. This event is being hosted by the Fair Share Garden in conjunction with the Art Consortium of Volusia County.

Activities:
~ Community mural creation with public participation.
~ Plein Air painting and informal plein air demonstration by Ruth Vines at 10 a.m.
~ Holiday Decorating with Herb Demonstration at 11 a.m.
~ Arts & Crafts for Sale including fine art paintings, functional art pottery, fair trade Peruvian & Nicaraguan pottery, fair trade African baskets, fair trade Haitian crafts, handmade jewelry, artisan soaps and balms, natural perfumes, wine glass accessories, and framed art photography

This is a fund raising event for the Fair Share Garden. Nominal cash donations are appreciated, but not required for entry. Donations of used gardening equipment are also appreciated.

Please RSVP with us on Facebook and invite your friends!

Weekend Production Streak: New Veggie Soaps, Balms & Perfumes

I had an extra looong weekend which started on Wednesday. It was so nice to be home working on restocking and making new products. First here is a little peak of what is put up to cure for December. The white soap at the top of the blog is a Lavender essential oil veggie soap. I used the same veggie oil formula that I use for my pumpkin poppy seed soap. That soap has a lot of repeat purchases and raves about it's very creamy and bubbly lather. So I decided it was time to make a few more soaps with this oil combo. Yesterday I also made a batch of veggie patchouli soap. I just cut it this morning. It has a pretty in the pot swirl made with cocoa powder as a contrasting natural colorant.


Rosemary mint was the second batch that I made yesterday. I decided to practice my bicolor layering, because I had a special request for 100 bilayer soaps over the weekend. Most of these green clay top layer soaps were perfect, but a couple like this one had a little dip into the white. Good thing I had a practice run. It's been a little while since I've made layered soaps.


Okay enough of what is curing and not ready to ship. I also made and listed some lip balms and perfumes over my long weekend. I was getting low on Sweet Orange and Licorice lip balms, so those are back in stock. Also brand new I have a Lavender Sweet Orange Lip balm. This is my first vegan lip balm made with Candelilla wax instead of Beeswax.


In the perfume department I added a single note Jasmine sambac perfume to the mix. It is strongly aromatic and long lasting.


A couple of more perfumes I actually added last week but haven't posted about yet, so I will mention them as well. The first is a single note Fine French Lavender essential oil roll on Perfume. The highly volatile Lavender is anchored with a small amount of vanilla-like Benzoin.


The second is a Spearmint roll on perfume also with Benzoin. The natural green comes from herbal Isatis tinctoria powder and alfalfa.


Lastly this beautiful Mandarin perfume is colored naturally with annatto seed and is a blend of Mandarin, Sweet Orange, Litsea, and Patchouli essential oils.

The Vibrant Photography of Anissa Designs

I met a great photographer Friday night on Beach Street at the First Friday Festival in Daytona Beach. Anissa Manzo is quite the out and about traveling photographer, with photos from France, Hawiaii, Thailand and more. She had a lovely display of art photography and jewelry pendants from her travels, which she also sells on Etsy.



She resides part of the year in Palm Coast as well as Savannah, Georgia where she has studied at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Anissa's photography style is bold and vibrant. She has a knack for capturing the beauty in everyday scenes and objects. You can find Anissa's work on her excellent photography blog.



In addition to photography Anissa is also interested in singing, chanting, drums, soccer, meditation, bikram yoga, saving bees and other forlorn insects. coffee, the beach, the mountains.

Fresh! Screening at the Museum of Arts & Sciences in Daytona Novemeber 18th

One week from today, November 18, 2009 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM, the Fair Share Garden in partnership with the Museum of Arts and Sciences and the Downtown Farmers Market will host the film Fresh! at the Museum of Arts and Sciences.

Unique from other previous documentaries on agriculture and farming which have focused on the horror of the industry, "Fresh" is a look at sustainable solutions to problems with our industrialized food system and offers ideas on the direction the movement should be headed.

Come enjoy a wholesome meal, silent auction, the movie, and an informative discussion to follow.

schedule

6:30 pm--wholesome meal which will include samples of Organic beer and Fair Trade Organic coffee, music, and silent auction.

7:00 pm--Fresh, the movie begins, and an interactive discussion panel with follow the movie. The panel includes Commercial Horticulture Agent, Dana Venrick of the Volusia County Cooperative Extension Service; Joel Tippens of the Fair Share Urban Garden Project; and organic farmer Pauline Copello of Pauline’s Lucky Market Garden.

Event ends at 8:30 pm.

This event is a fundraiser for the Fair Share Urban Garden Project and the proceeds support establishing new community gardens and urban agriculture projects in Daytona Beach. Tickets are $15 at the door.

Thank you to our sponsors: Orlando Brewing, Sweetwater Organic Coffee, Cafe Campesino, Access to Organics, Chique LLC, Downtown Farmers Market and the Museum of Arts & Sciences.


For further details on this event contact the Museum of Arts & Sciences at (386) 255-0285

story

FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision of our food and our planet’s future. FRESH addresses an ethos that has been sweeping the nation and is a call to action America has been waiting for.

characters

Among several main characters, FRESH features:

Will Allen - 6ft 7" former professional basketball player Will Allen is now one of the most influential leaders of the food security & urban farming movement. His farm and not-for-profit, Growing Power, have trained and inspired people in every corner of the US to start growing food sustainably. This man and his organization go beyond growing food. They provide a platform for people to share knowledge and form relationships in order to develop alternatives to the industrial food system.

Joel Salatin- world-famous sustainable farmer and entrepreneur, made famous by Michael Pollan (also in the movie) - author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Joel Salatin writes in his website that he is "in the redemption business: healing the land, healing the food, healing the economy, and healing the culture." By closely observing nature, Joel created a rotational grazing system that not only allows the land to heal but also allows the animals to behave the way the were meant to – as in expressing their "chicken-ness" or "pig-ness", as Joel would say.

David Ball -supermarket owner, challenging our Wal-Mart dominated economy. With the rise of Wal-Mart and other big chains, David Ball saw his family-run supermarket dying, along with a once-thriving local farm community. So he reinvented his business, partnering with area farmers to sell locally-grown food and specialty food products at an affordable price. His plan has brought the local economy back to life.

reason

FRESH recaptures our sense of agency and makes us believe that our individual actions in fact do matter. Throughout the film we encounter the most inspiring people, ideas, and initiatives around the US. And thus, FRESH showcases real people first and foremost, connecting audiences not with facts and figures or apocalyptic policy analysis, but with personal stories of change.

producer

Ana Joanes is a Swiss-born documentary filmmaker whose work addresses pressing social issues through character-driven narratives. After traveling internationally to study the environmental and cultural impacts of globalization, she graduated from Columbia Law School in May 2000, awarded as a Stone Scholar and Human Rights Fellow. Thereafter, Ana created Reel Youth, a video production program for youth coming out of detention. In 2003, Ana and her friend Andrew Unger produced Generation Meds, a documentary exploring our fears and misgivings about mental illness and medication. FRESH is Ana’s second feature documentary.

Click here for directions to the Museum on the Fresh Website. Please consider RSVPing with us on Facebook and sharing this event with your friends. Enjoy the preview for the movie below.

Mandarin Perfume

Mandarin Perfume
Originally uploaded by AquarianBath

It's been a little while since I've made a blog post. I had a great art show downtown on Friday in Daytona Beach. We enjoyed a Fire Poi performance while sipping Muscadine Wine from the San Sabastion Winery in St. Augustine. I met a couple of great photography artists, one of which I will blog more about this week.

The Rose Geranium roll on perfume has been a hit, so I've been working on putting together a few more simple roll perfumes which will be listed on etsy this week. One of which is this Mandarin Perfume. It is made with pure essential oils of Mandarin, Sweet Orange, lemony Litsea and Patchouli. The Jojoba base that has been lightly infused with Annatto Seed to give it a lovely orange color.

The Florida Etsy Street Team's Fall 2009 Catalog

I'm pleased to present the Florida Etsy Street Team Fall 2009 catalog on behalf of our team. Take a peak. You will find some fabulous Florida arts and crafters as well as special deals from our members. You can download the pdf catalog here.

How Was Your Halloween? Sharing my Day at the Hallowgreen Festival

I spent the morning at the Hallowgreen event in Daytona Beach, which was a fundraiser for the Fair Share Garden. There were a number of workshops, trick or treaters and vendors at the event. It was an early morning as we were setting up in conjunction with the regular City Island Saturday farmer's market. My intention was to be awake at 5:45 a.m. and set up by 7 a.m. When I woke up and sat down at the computer the clock read 7:04 a.m. OOPS!! Scott accidentally turned off the alarm that he set for me. Half awake, I headed out for the market with out my bag of items for my workshop on home remedies for cold and flu. Luckily I chose a recipe to demonstrate which consisted of simple ingredients available at the farmer's market: garlic and honey. I picked up the garlic from one of the produce vendors and wild flower honey and a small jar of gourmet pickled okra from Ms. Ocie and I was all set. I knew I could count on the dedicated fair share volunteers to help me finish off the jar of pickles so I would have an empty pint jar for my demo.



Filling up the jar with honey: garlic is helpful for resolving colds, coughs, sore throats, and sinus infections. If you would like to make some garlic honey for cold and flu season you can find the full method in a former blog post.



Dana Venrick of the Volusia Flagler Cooperative Extension Service and Joel Tippens of the Fair Share Urban Garden Project gave an introduction to organic gardening at Hallowgreen.



Dana introduced everyone to the various organic supplements for the garden. One of which was Azomite. This is a mineral rich volcanic ash which we use at the garden. It is pictured below among the other items.


Rich organic soil hand mixed by Joel Tippes of Fair Share.


Chicken mother got my vote for best costume.


Here we are: chicken child, chicken mom, pouty ballerina, and I enjoying our pretzel cigarettes. Like my pumpkin arm paint? That has lingered in the form of pumpkin tan lines.


Meet two of the hand crafting vendors:

Michelle Davidson of Daytona Beach with her son Isaac. Michelle is a talented artist who makes fused glass jewelry and a wide range of fine art. Check out her fine art America website. I'm the proud owner of some of Michelle's fused pendants.


Crystal Calhoun is the owner at Stars and Crossbones and a member of the Florida Etsy Street Team. Crystal spins yarn and makes beautiful scarves and her partner Brian makes chainmaille jewelry. See the pretty green linen scarf being fingered in the picture below? It didn't stay on the table long before it was snapped up by a happy customer.

Lavender Earl Grey Tea: A Favorite New Morning Tea Blend

During the summer (which seems to go on forever in Florida) I generally like to drink green tea. The green tea is very cooling. We brew it up daily and store it in the refrigerator in a glass jar. I also am fond of making vitamin and mineral rich herbal infusions of nettles, oatstraw, and red raspberry leaf. Recently I've been drinking Earl Grey Lavender tea in the morning. We have a great restaurant supply store in town called Sixth Street Sales, where I am able to find lots of fun boxed discount tea blends. The Lavender Earl Grey tea was one of the blends that I found last time from Revolution. Regular Earl Grey tea is a black tea made with Bergamot oil. Bergamot is a rich, sweet, fruity citrus oil used in aromatherapy and natural perfumery.



I love the way the addition of a small amount of Lavender buds adds a sweet herbaceous touch to the earl grey. When I run out of the tea bags, I'm planning to pick up some earl grey in bulk to which I will be adding home grown Lavender from my friend Michelle. Lavender is one of my favorite herbs for calming the nervous system and I enjoy making Lavender vodka/ tincture for use during stressful periods.

I'm looking forward to reading what others are drinking in the morning lately. This blog post is a part of an a November blog party about morning beverages hosted by Dancing in a Field of Tansy

New Product: Rose Geranium Natural Perfume

Rose Geranium Perfume
Originally uploaded by AquarianBath

The alkanet root infused jojoba oil makes up the base of this perfume giving it a lovely red color. The perfume is naturally scented with the Rose like essential oil of Perlargonium gravolens, also known as Rose Geranium. A small amount of Australian sandalwood helps anchor and complement the Rose Geranium.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=33536552

Delicate Little Beauties: My First Moringa Flowers

This is my second year growing Moringa oleifera trees, but the first year they have bloomed. If you are not familiar with Moringa, it is a highly nutritive tree, which has the highest protein concentration of any known plant. It is also very easy to digest. Since they did not bloom last year and I was harvesting a good amount of leaves I decided to just let them go over the summer and see if we got any flowers. So here are the first blooms from one of the trees at the Fair Share Garden. I am hoping that we will end up with many seeds to share. All parts of the plant have a variety of culinary and medicinal uses. The most interesting use I have found though is water purification using the seeds. In Natural Medicine in the Tropics Treatments Dr. Hans Martin Hirt gives a complete method for river water purification. About 10 crushed seeds (2 grams of seed) is needed to purify 20 litres of water. The Moringa seed binds the fine particles and bacteria and removes 90- 99.9% of bacteria. The purification can actually be done also with seed that has already been pressed for its oil. Moringa oil has a long shelf life and can be used in cooking, soap making, and as a base for cosmetics.

Abundant Neem Harvest at the Herb Farm and What I'm Doing With All of It

I spent another Saturday at Maggie's Herb Farm in St. Augustine teaching an advanced soapmaking class for Creating Shampoo Bars and Spa/Salt Soaps. The class itself when very well. I had some mild anxiety on the way up that I had maybe not packed all the ingredients that we needed, but everything was packed and it was a very smooth class.

The last time I was at the farm I finally noticed that there was a huge neem tree in one of the large green houses. When I talked to the owner on Thursday before the class, I asked her if I could harvest some for myself. She sounded very excited about the prospect and told me have her employee help me harvest it so that the branches would no longer be threatening to poke a hole through the top of the green house. So during our lunch break Julie climbed right up the tree and took down about 15 large branches that really needed to be pruned while I assisted. After our lunch break I brought some of the branches into class and we filled up jars with neem leaves and other herbs to make an apple cider vinegar based deodorant spray. Later, my husband helped me carry the cumbersome bundle into the house, I asked him how much he thought it was. He estimated 35 pounds. The weight of it had thrown him off balance, and I actually think maybe it was even more than that.

I'm in day three of processing all the neem. Saturday night I laid out two trays of leaves to dry, put up a quart of leaf in tincture, a quart of leaf in oil to cold infuse, a basket full of bark to dry, and a basket full of twigs to dry. Today I need to strip the rest of the bark from the large branches.

This is my first neem leaf harvest, though I have been growing baby neem trees in Central Florida for the last two years and using neem oil in my products and garden. I have read that dried neem leaves are helpful for repelling insects and can be added to dried rice, beans, and other dried herbs. The neem leaf is highly medicinal and is used for a various skin conditions such as foot fungus, psoriasis, scabies, acne, allergic reactions, small pox, chicken pox, and eczema. I'm preparing the leaf tincture to use as described in Natural Medicine in the Tropics by Hans Martin Hirt, which is to mix the leaf tincture together with vegetable oil for application as an ointment. I will likely use the infused leaf oil together with the tincture. I generally prefer to infuse herbs in oil on the stove top, but from what I understand the medicinal properties of the neem leaves are best extracted cold, so I simply will let them sit in my Extra Virgin Olive oil/ Coconut oil solution for a few weeks and then strain and decant. The jar of leaves and oil was very bubbly and oozing yesterday morning. Neem bark and twigs are particularly useful in dental care for keeping gums healthy. The dried bark I plan to grind in herbal friend's hammermill for use in tooth powder, and I may even put up some bark in alcohol to make an extract for application to gums today as well. I will be cutting up the little twigs into tooth-pick sized pieced for dental care as well.

I have more classes coming up at Maggies Herb farm in November and December. You can call the farm to preregister 904-829-0722:

Herbal Aromatics! Natural Incense & Perfumery Class.
Saturday November 14th 10:00 AM-2:00 PM
Join us for an introduction to incense and natural perfumery. We will be making all natural cone incense with dried herbs and resins, as well as a room spray, cologne, and solid perfumes with pure essential oils. Learn the properties of various essential oils and how to combine them to repel pests, freshen a room, and more. We will be working with a variety of dried herbs including those available at the farm including Lemon Verbena, Lemon grass, and Patchouli. Bring a sack lunch $45

Herbal Bath & Body Holiday Stocking Stuffers Class!
Saturday December 12th 10:30– 2:30
Join us for a fun-filled day of sipping herb-mulled cider and creating herbal holiday gifts for friends and family. We will be making 4 sets of stocking stuffers with each gift bag including: 2 Peppermint and 2 Cinnamon stick lip balms in old fashioned metal slide tins, 4 Herb-infused Winter Dry Skin Shea butter balms infused with fresh picked herbs, and 4 sets of herbal bath teas. We will also make herbal decorations with fresh Rosemary to take home for ourselves! Bring a sack lunch. $40.00