Mother's Day Gift Ideas

Mother's Day is coming right up and we have a few special offerings in limited quantity.  These "I Heart MOM" soaps are scented with  Bulgarian Rose wax, and essential oils of Rose Geranium,  Lavender , and Blood cedarwood.  

 Purchase these soaps singly or in a boxed gift set together with a cedar soap deck to extend the life of your soap and a 4 oz after bath Lavender Massage oil.  

Our hot or cold therapy neck pillows are available year round but we have many new fabrics in stock for Mother's day as these are popular gift items.  This blue and white floral flaxseed pillow reminds me of my grandmother and mother's Blue Willow China.  Find more pillows to choose from in the Neck pillow section.

We also have many new Facial Pillows in stock.  These pillows are designed to cover the eyes, forehead, and TMJ area.  They can be used hot out of the microwave or cold out of the freezer and come with a matching washable pillow cover.  The gold leaves fabric used in the pillow pictured above was designed by Daytona Beach area illustrator BJ Lantz.  Shop for more facial pillows here.

Keep Cool in the Summer with Flax Seeds!

As an herbalist living in Florida I can tell you keeping cool is a high priority.  It's quite simplistic, but the herb that I use the most often for beating the summer heat is flax.  Flax is also known as Linum usitatissimum or linseed. Organic flax seed can be found at your local health food store in bulk.  I sew up neck and eye pillows  in various shapes and fill them with flax, sometimes together with organic lavender buds and store these pillows in the freezer.  I have about 5 in the freezer right now!  My daughter loves them too.  You can store them in plastic bags to protect the fabric if you like.  When you get home from doing errands or come in from working in the garden, they feel great draped around your neck.   They are great to use on new bumps and bruises for children also.  Of course I had to go get one out of the fridge also for writing this post!  It feels great on tension from overwork with the mouse on photo editing, etc.  If you don't like sewing and or you are on a budget you can tie up flax in a long sock to use.  Please feel welcome to visit my online store for neck and eye pillows.  Take a peek and let me know which one is your favorite.

This blog post is a part of a blog party being hosted by Kristine Brown. Please visit her blog to find out all about what other herbalists are doing to keep cool during the summer. 

Flax photograph by D. Gordon E. Robertson.  Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this photo under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Next Day Shipping and Hot Weather Reorganization

Hot humid weather is slowly creeping back here in Central Florida. This means an end to my out door craft shows and soap making until around October. The heat and humidity are very hard on the shelf life of soaps and exposing them just isn't worth it. During the cool season I have my soaps organized in containers such that there are 4 or more of each variety in containers that I take to craft shows, a second craft show box for friend's to take to their shows, plus I have a number of overstock boxes set aside. This system requires a good deal of short term memory when it comes to packing online orders quickly.



With a baby due in a few weeks I wanted to totally reorganize this system for summer and make it easier for me to keep up with next day shipping from my shops. I love getting orders out as soon as possible and often they are shipped the same day that the order is placed. I picked up a number of 'shoe box' type containers for sorting soaps by type, so that they could be labeled and orders filled by myself or a helper quite easily..



I spent a day or two sorting soaps and also salves, perfumes, and lip balms so they would be quick and easy to find. The soaps are sorted by type and each box contains a desiccant to keep out humidity.


With summer weather on the way I will be doing more sewing and you can expect to find more variety of organic flax neck pillows and eye pillows in my shop. The neck pillows are so nice in the summer when stored in the freezer for use after a hot afternoon in the garden or for injuries. I have already restocked some of my neck pillow fabrics. I'm also getting ready for a second wholesale sewing project. I'll be sewing a full bolt of eye pillow liners in a couple of weeks.