*beeswax cloth tutorial

I made a bunch of beeswax cloth a few weeks ago bringing us one step closer to a plastic free kitchen! It is simple to make and even easier to use. We wrap food (like cheese and sandwiches) and cover bowls and jars with them. And they smell so sweet and good!

 

You will need ::

Beeswax - if you do not have pellets like I did you can use an old cheese grater. But the wax is really hard to get off so you need one that will only be used for this project. I got my beeswax from Mountain Rose Herbs.

 

Fabric - I recommend only natural fibers for this project. Cotton or linen is ideal. I used lightweight cotton for my wraps. Cut the fabric into any shape or size you want. I used pinking shears to keep the edges from fraying. Make sure it is clean and lint free.

 

 

Cookie sheet - lining your cookie sheet with foil will make clean up a breeze!

 

Heat your oven to 170 degrees. Put your fabric on the lined cookie sheet and sprinkle the beeswax on like the photo above. You do not need to cover the entire surface as it will spread as it melts. Put it in the oven for 6 or 7 minutes. remove as soon as all the beeswax is melted.

Once it is out of the oven you will need to work fast! The wax will start to harden as soon as it is out. Hang the cloth up and let it cool. If there are spots with no wax put it back on the cookie sheet and put a small piece of wax on the bare parts and pop it back into oven. If you ended up with too much wax put it on top of a fresh piece of fabric and put it in the oven for a few minutes.

 

Use the heat of your hands to mold the beeswax cloth to whatever you are wrapping. It will also stick to itself or to the rim of a bowl or jar to create a seal. You can wipe it clean or wash it with cool, soapy water then air dry. Just do not use hot water, of course.

 

So there you go! Bye-bye plastic wrap!

 

 



*it's hot, folks.

Things I loathe when the temps are in the triple digits ::

* driving * dog breath * bras * making food * eating food *

 

Things I love, even when it is ridiculously hot outside ::

*happy, healthy veggie plants * cool showers * smoothies for dinner *popsicles *

* watching my boys water the garden with buckets *

* cold brewed coffee, lots of ice, sweetened with local honey
and topped off with a splash of raw milk *

* watching the kiddos from this spot in my dining room,
right next to an A/C vent for good measure *

 

happy, HAPPY mama*

 Anyone remember this unfortunate incident that took place last Spring?

I have been using that broken range for 15 months (but who's counting?!). Turns out it is perfectly functional without that outer glass however the door no longer stayed open by itself. That means I have been propping the door open with my knees this whole time. Not fun when I am wearing a skirt or shorts. I have burned my legs and forearms approximately 8 dozen times (again, who's keeping track?).

 

We are currently in the middle of finishing our basement and part of that project involved plumbing a line to our kitchen for a gas stove. Eek, excited doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about this.

 

I expected to wait until next Spring to get a gas range but then we came across this gem on Craigslist for next to nothing and brought it home. Some folks had just bought a home in a fancy-schmancy pants neighborhood and promptly purchased brand new appliances and were practically giving the "old" stuff away. And as we all know I have absolutely no problem with previously owned treasures!



five gas burners! swoon!!

 



One itty-bitty downside is that the gas range is off white, or is that almond? Anyway, the rest of my appliances are bright white (like my micro in the pic above) but I think I will get over that real quick as I cook and bake with this baby. And I am never, ever canning outside with the propane burner again, woohoo!

Buh-bye broken door range. See ya never!



inspired mama miscellany*

He found this guitar in the closet in my studio and serenaded us all weekend.

Our real foodie group had it's second food swap today. I took oregano plants that I thinned from my herb garden, kombucha SCOBYs, and sets of cotton "unpaper" towels. I brought home freshly baked ciabatta and rye bread, plum butter, strawberries, cherries, plum seeds and recipe cards with cute little bicycles on them. 

Oh, and I made another embellished tank! Hoorah!



water kefir*welcome to my living kitchen

 This is the newest addition to my fermenting kitchen - water kefir.

(Those jars in the background have kombucha in them and that one on the right has four (!!) SCOBYs in it, each approximately 1 inch thick. If you are local and need a kombucha starter, hit me up!)

 This is what water kefir grains look like. Little gelatinous pearls.

 





 Making water kefir is pretty simple. And quick! Mine was ready to bottle in just 48 hours. The first thing you will need to get started are the grains. If you have a friend who makes kefir they can probably share with you because just like my SCOBYs above kefir grains also multiply each time you use them. If you can't find them through a friend you can order them from various places online. Cultures for Health is always a good source for such things.

 

Here is the process I followed ::

I filled my glass jar with 5 cups of warm, filtered water (just warm enough to dissolve the other ingredients).

Then I added 1/3 cup raw sugar and 1 tsp unsulphered, organic molasses. I also added 1 tsp of baking soda as I read that the minerals are good for the grains and it can also result in a fizzier kefir.

Stir with a wooden spoon until everything is dissolved.

Pour your grains into the mixture once it is room temp - you will need 1/3-1/2 cup of grains.

after a day or so little carbonation bubbles would float to the top of my jar when I moved it. On day 2 it was very fizzy.

 

I bottled and flavored it much like I do my kombucha. I added some pineapple juice that I had on hand and will let it sit out at room temperature for a couple days before I refrigerate and drink it.

 

Then I mixed up more water and started a brand hew batch. This time I am going to add vanilla and try to replicate cream soda! I will keep you all posted on how it turns out, friends!

 

sourdough*not just another farmette pet

I successfully made a sourdough starter a few weeks ago. I have stirred it daily and fed it weekly. I lovingly clean it's jar twice a week and change the organic cotton cover whenever needed. It kinda-sorta sounds like caring for a little pet, right?

 

I tried baking bread with my meticulously maintained starter but it did not turn out. I also made pizza dough. Eh, it was okay, but it could be way better. I am going to do some tweaking to make it closer to perfect this weekend.

 

The one thing I have been making regularly with delicious results are sourdough pancakes.  Lovely batter is started right before we go to bed and finished up while the coffee brews in the morning and then cooked to golden perfection in coconut oil.

 

Our batter is a pretty pale orange thanks to the spelt flour and fresh eggs from our backyard coop!



Plate full of glorious real food breakfast!

We serve them with pats of grass fed butter and homemade strawberry-rhubarb jam that has been warmed up.

You can find the recipe that I have been using here ::

traditional sourdough pancakes

And here are instructions to make your own sourdough pet, er, starter ::

how to make a sourdough starter

and one more good link ::

working with sourdough - tips and tricks

 

Oh, and if you have a wonderful sourdough bread recipe to share pretty please leave me a comment and I will love you forever! Thanks friends! xx 



open house*

Scenes from my very first Barefoot Books event - an open house in my home ::

 

 



Of course I didn't snap a single photo while our home was full of people but we had a lot of fun with our guests! Thank you all for spending the day with us, dear friends! xo



i made a dress*

 

 

 

In my last post I shared my desire to make stuff for myself and my family now that I am no longer sewing for my handmade business. Making good on that declaration here is my first completed project of the season - a new dress for ME! I am so excited!

 

The Pattern is The Ashland Dress from Sew Liberated. I used designer quilter's cotton from JoAnns. I installed the prettiest invisible zipper. And this thing fits like, well, like it was made for me!

 

Next up in my queue are darling vintage inspired shorts. I have dreamy visions of creating an entire handmade summer wardrobe. And this evening I dyed enough wool yarn to knit my self a cozy winter sweater.

 

Stay tuned for more selfish crafting posts, friends! 

xx 

new beginnings, endings and a little in between*

the past few weeks have presented my family with many changes - a new school for the kids, exciting employment opportunities,  a change in summer plans, just to name a few. transformation is hard, but so is stagnant living. so i am currently rolling with the tide, trying to keep my head above water and just waiting anxiously to see where life leads us.

i recently made the huge decision to close up my little handmade and organic shops. this was not an easy choice to make and i am still very sad to let it all go but i am also breathing a sigh of relief. i am participating in one last event this fall with some friends, so if you are local please come visit me at my last Hyde Park Street Fair appearance! i am hoping i can spend my creative time sewing and knitting items for my family and tending to my garden and my animals and canning, baking, cooking... all those lovely homestead-y things i truly enjoy doing but often do not have time for!

i have also decided to start a brand new journey and i recently joined the Barefoot Books company - my family has loved these books for years! i bought a couple at a children's fair several years ago and then had a book party in my home a couple years after that. last month i wanted to purchase a barefoot book for each of my kids for their birthdays and i discovered that this wonderful company was sadly under-represented in my neck of the woods. after a whole lot of discussion with my hubby and some friends i decided to sign up and bring these amazing stories and gifts to my valley! i will be honest, i had a somewhat hard time talking myself into this - multi-level marketing has never been my cup of tea, but i adore these books so much - the diversity, the art, the magical tales - i am proud and very excited to share them with others!

so there you have it. wish me luck, sweet friends! here we grow again...

real foodies*start a swap!

 A few weeks ago I posted in a local natural family group on facebook asking if anyone had kefir grains to share or to trade for a kombucha scoby. I ended up finding milk kefir grains and I traded two kombucha starters for a giant bunch of beautiful rhubarb and the tastiest homemade elderberry jelly as a result of that post. I then had a big, bright light bulb moment - what if we met up regularly with all of our homemade real food and starters and produce and such and had a big swap?

I mentioned my idea in the same facebook group and there was a lot of interest. So The Treasure Valley Real Foodies was born. Of course this idea isn't new and real food swaps are actually becoming quite popular! Here is how ours came to be... 

 

The first step was to start a facebook group and invite all the local real food lovers and ask them to invite all their friends. Within a couple days there were 50 members. Next I offered to host the first swap in my home and put up a poll with some tentative dates so everyone could vote for the day that worked best for most. Once the date was settled I created a facebook event and invited everyone in the group. When each member RSVP'd to the event they would post a list of what they would be bringing to swap and what they were in search of. We decided to include a few non-food items in our swaps like organic soap, wool yarn, recipe cards and paper goods and other handmade things.

 



 



In typical Inspired Mama fashion I completely forgot about my camera while everyone was here for the swap, dang it! But above is a photo of the lovely items I ended up with - several plants (mint, parsley, lettuce, hen and chicks, wonderberry, and a tiny apricot tree!), a fresh baked whole wheat loaf and some handmade recipe cards. I also got some bundles of dried sage and catnip for tea.

 

Other items that were swapped ::

*eggs

*natural elk burger and sausage

*sourdough starters with care instructions and recipes

*an oak tree

*canned jelly

*kombucha scobys

*hand dyed wool yarn

*soap

*letterpress items

*milk kefir grains

* herb filled dream pillows

 

We each explained and identified what we had to contribute and when it was time to trade it was a lot of "Hey! I would love this! Can I trade you for a pound of burger or a bar of organic soap?" There was no set value for the swap items, we all just worked out our own little deals and everyone left happy with bags full of goodies.

 

As the season progresses we will have plenty of backyard produce and canned goods to add to our swaps. We have decided to meet once a month for now but may meet every other week when our gardens are in full bloom.

 

Do you have a similar food swap in your community? If so I would love to hear all about it! And if you are inspired to start your own local swap please let me know that too! And next time I attend a food swap I will make sure to take lots and lots of photos...

little vintage sofa makeover

This is my little vintage sofa. I adore this thing. It is comfy, cute, and made from the perfect fabric (so soft and so easy to clean!)

 

I thought it was just right until I saw a couple pins on Pinterest over the weekend that made me gasp out loud. Seriously folks, the quickest, easiest vintage sofa/chair makeover ever.

 

Remove the skirt!!

 

Don't believe me? See for yourself.

 

with dingy, ruffled skirt.

and without!

I have a black dog who loves to lay up against the sofa so the skirt was pretty dirty. This just made perfect sense. It came off really easily. My husband pried it off with a butter knife while I went behind him and pulled all the staples out with pliers. 10 minutes and we were done. And now you can see darling sofa's pretty wood legs!

 >>><<<
Here is a chair that was updated by removing the skirt.

And another sofa makeover here.

One more! Go check out my friend Chelsea's Instagram feed to see pics of her new thrifted sofa that she transformed by removing the skirt! It's amazing, right?
>>><<<

What do you think, friends! All vintage furniture should be freed from their skirts, yes? If you decide to transform a sofa or chair this way please send me a link or pics!
 

kombucha coffee * a new brew

Kombuchee? Coffucha? Still trying to decide what to call this new staple in our house. A friend suggested Kombucino, I like it.

So folks, this was my new kitchen experiment this week and it turned out really {really} good! I've been brewing and drinking kombucha tea for quite some time now and recently I came across this post at Cultured Food Life about using coffee instead of tea and I knew I had to give it a try (did you all know I have a slight coffee addiction?...) Fermenting coffee this way makes it less acidic so it is gentle on tummies and you also get all the lovely probiotics that are found in kombucha tea. Plus the iced coffee tastes divine and makes a very tasty treat!

If you have brewed kombucha this will all make sense. If you have not read these posts to get all caught up ::

kombucha - breed your own scoby

kombucha - brewing, bottling and flavoring

counter top science experiments! SCOBYs on the left, kombucha coffee in progress on the right.

you will need ::

freshly brewed black coffee (either a gallon or half gallon)

sugar (1 cup for a gallon of coffee, 1/2 cup for 1/2 gallon) 

a scoby

The process is very similar to brewing kombucha tea. I brewed a half gallon of coffee, poured it into a glass jar and stirred a half cup of sugar into it while it was still hot. Once the sugar is dissolved set your sweetened coffee aside until it cools to room temperature. Once it has cooled put your scoby on top of the coffee and cover with a clean cloth secured with a rubber band. Set it on a counter top out of direct sunlight and let it work it's magic. I started tasting mine after 3 days. It was still pretty sweet but on day 5 it was only mildly sweet and ready to bottle. I strained it through a small funnel lined with a piece of cheesecloth (totally optional) into a half gallon mason jar and popped it into the fridge. You will serve this brew cold or at room temperature as heating it will kill all those good probiotics and such. I saved a cup or so of the fermented coffee to add to my next batch. I am very anxious to find out how it will effect the next jar. 

My scoby was pretty gnarly looking when I retrieved it from the jar and it is my understanding that it works best to use a new scoby each time so this one went into the compost pail.





 

Here is my final product - mildly sweet kombucha coffee over ice with a splash of almond milk! Yum!! New favorite treat!

Cheers to healthy guts and happy tummies, friends!



ruffled tie tees * another re-fashion

 

I stitched these up for a friend last week.

thrifted tops + men's ties (also thrifted) + vintage buttons = adorable tees! 

 

The tutorial can be found here. Super cute and endless possibilities! So there you go friends, go re-fashion something!



mama and monkey * this is how we spend the days

We go outside every single day. I tend to gardens and animals while he runs and climbs. We both get really dirty. Then sometimes when my backyard chores are done I pour myself a cup of coffee and lay in the hammock with a book while he plays. Or I can go into the kitchen and make food or clean dishes and watch him from the window.

 

Then we come in, full of fresh air and vitamin D and we cuddle and read. And he often sleeps and then I can pick up my book once again. Or sew something. Sometimes I roam around the internet during my quiet time.

 

I know I have said it dozens of times but outdoor living really does suit us well.