Happy New Year! Schedule of Events and Workshops for 2010

Art Walk:October
Originally uploaded by JackWhiteLandCo

The new year is almost here! Wishing a happy, healthy & prosperous new year to all of you.

I have put together my schedule of classes, workshops, and events for the first quarter of 2010 on my website at http://aquarianbath.com/events.html where you can also watch for events later in the year.

Hope to see those of you who are in the Daytona Beach or St. Augustine area soon.

January 16th workshop at the Sea Side Herb Society Meeting in Ormond Beach at the corner of Beach St. and Granada on using locally grown herbs for body care. 10:15 a.m. Saturday

February 5th vending in Daytona Beach 5-9 p.m. First Friday Art Walk on Beach Street

February 6th Natural Salve and Balm Making in St. Augustine at Maggie's Herb Farm Saturday February 6, 2010 10:30 AM- 2:30 PM Learn to make your infused herbal oils, salves and balms. We will gather fresh herbs for making a wound salve and learn to make a black drawing salve and lip balms. Learn about oil bases appropriate for balm and salve making and a variety of herbs that can be used in salves and infused oils. A hands on workshop Fee $35. bring a sack lunch Register at http://www.maggiesherbfarm.com

February 20th. Introduction to Herbal Aromatics Perfumery and Incense Saturday at Maggies Herb Farm in St. Augustine 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 and solid perfume with pure essential oils. We will be working with a variety of dried herbs including those available at the farm including Lemon Verbena and Patchouli. Bring a sack lunch $35. Register at http://www.maggiesherbfarm.com

March 5th vending at the First Friday Art Walk on Beach Street in Daytona 5-9 p.m.

March 6th Herbal Medicine Making: Tinctures, and Syrups Saturday 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM Learn the basic methods for herbal home medicine making for your family. This is a hands on class in which you gather herbs from the farm for making tinctures and a cough syrup. We will focus on methods for making preparations, properties, of herbs used during the class including Mints, Holy Basil, Patchouli, Thyme and more. Fee $35. bring a sack lunch. A hands on workshop. Instructor Cory Trusty. Register at http://www.maggiesherbfarm.com

March 27th Vending at the Sea Side Herb Society's Herb Fair in Ormond Beach at the corner of Beach St. and Granada.

Pictures from the Mural in Progress at the Fair Share Garden

It is going to be worse than the end of okra season when we are done painting this mural. It has been such a fun process. Moira and I were out again painting with other volunteers the morning after Christmas. Way more fun than looking for post-holiday sales. Yesterday for the most part I spent some time filling in a baby blue sky back ground, and working on the tricolor rainbow, which you can see in the first photo above the vegetables.



Here is a close up of the sunflowers.



I think Michelle spent more time that she would care to remember touching up the blue water way. There was a comedy of errors with mix ups with the different blue shades of paint. Luckily we were pacified by peanut butter fudge shared by another volunteer.



It's a beautiful site. You can click on the picture below to see it enlarged. I'll be sure to update with more pictures of the finished project. We will be painting again at the garden Wednesday at 4 if anyone would like to join us.

Fresh Batch of Pumpkin Soap: Post Holiday Restocking

I got quite low on soaps over the holidays, and now I have just begun the process of making more. I plan to spend my free time in January stocking up as much soap as possible. February and March I have classes and shows planned. Also, I don't think I will find soap making terribly enjoyable when eight & nine months pregnant in April in May. I am dreaming that I can get enough soap made that I won't have to restock again until October when the humidity dies down, but that may be a bit too much wishful thinking.



Yesterday I made a new batch of my Pumpkin poppy seed soap. The pumpkins I used were from my garden like the Seminole pumpkins in the picture taken by Jason Aufdenberg at our Fair Share Garden. To make the puree for the soap I first roast it in the oven and then store what I don't use immediately in the freezer. The pumpkin puree I mix together with distilled water and lye. Here is is freshly poured into my two wooden molds. They have poppy seeds added as well as Ginger and Sweet Orange essential oils and a bit of Patchouli to help anchor the Sweet Orange.



Here it is all set up in the molds in less than 24 hours. I woke up at 2 am this morning with nothing better to do so I took the soap out of the mold and cut it.



The cut came out nicely.



The next step is to let them set out to cure for about a month. During the curing period water evaporates from the soap and they become harder and milder.



Next on the restock checklist is my Dark Stout soap made with Guinness beer, and after that more Neem oil shampoo bars.

Is there something that you don't want me to run out of in the midst of the upcoming late pregnancy/new baby era? Leave a comment and let me know! I'm scaling back on some items but plan to have more popular ones well stocked.

Mural Creation at the Fair Share Garden

We had fun day at Fair Share yesterday with the new mural in progress. It was quite cold out. Luckily we had access to the Lions club building where we also set up together with the Art Consortium and some warming beverages. Moira was so disappointed when it was finally time for her to go home with daddy, but she was truly tired. I came home to find that she had taken her tempera paint out and was mixing up a storm while I was away.

Here is Joel's daughter Hannah at the North East end of the building.


Fair share volunteer Lucy was a sunflower star!


Here is Jason who was painting from about 9 am to 6 pm. I don't think I saw him take a break. Jason also took some some great photos of the day which can be found on our meet up page.


We were not able to finish the mural yesterday. I'm looking forward to helping finish it up the next time we work on it. Join our meetup group if you would like to know when we will be working on the mural again.

Winter in Florida

It was such a nice morning I had to take some pictures in my back yard. This is the best time of year for me in Florida. It's 70 degrees today.



The leaves are finally starting to change colors and fall. Here are Fifi, Helen and Rose waiting for breakfast. Amazingly these black birds stayed in the back yard this morning. Moira or I usually have to catch them in the morning at least a couple times and put them back over the fence.