Holiday Gift Giving; United Plant Savers Membership

I know that those of you who follow my blog, know that I am an avid supporter of The United Plant Savers non profit organization. I am a memeber, and became one, because a very intuitive family friend and wonderful Alexander Technique teacher, thought to give me a membership for my birthday. I knew that Rosemary Gladstar had done some amazing charity and sanctuary work, even founding many herself. In all of the years that I have been studying her, I did not fully realize the extent of the sanctuary network until some years ago.

Rosemary Gladstar, Ashtree publishing

The Mission of The United Plant Savers organization is to protect the future of the planet's edible and medicinal herbs, which are quickly declining in the wild, do to over harvesting, deforestation and other detriments to their natural homes.
Many species are very difficult to cultivate ourselves due to their specific needs in their natural environment.

The way the plants grow, the strength and healing qualities are best defined when growing in these groupings, whereas they lack in quality and effectiveness where they are often grown separate in commercial agriculture

With a United Plant Savers membership, you gain access to online teaching materials, course work in herbalism, activism, an herbal journal and access to internships and just an abundance of useful information and seasonal rare seed and plant offers.

One of my favorite is their Golden seal give away, where they send you plants. This is a wonderful way to support the great Goldenseal sanctuary.


Goldenseal is still used in medicine today and is on the decline. It has been called the "Cure All" plant, and has been used in everything from mainstream medications to GNC supplements. It has a very long history as an antimicrobial and is a natural antibiotic - A very important aspect along with it's ability to fight ailments like Strep, UTI infections, acne, eczema, and can even strengthen the immune system to fight bacterial and fungal infections. It has been used for colds, digestive upsets, and any inflamed mucous membrane. Goldenseal can also alleviate sore throats, and intestinal, infections caused by microbes, such as traveler’s diarrhea.
The Goldenseal sanctuary has been established in Rutland, Ohio (great field trip Ohioans!)

 A membership or donation this season is a chance to do some good and to help our community.

Also: Goldenseal Sanctuary spring intern Ted Martello (aka TMello) is hiking the Appalachian trail as a fundraiser for United Plant Savers. TMello is proposing a penny for each mile he walks southbound from the beginning of the Appalachian Trail in Maine. His goal is to reach the trail's end by November or December, a total of 2175 miles (for a total of $21.75). 

The United Plant savers are also a platform for the voice of the Organic community, as an outlet for information and to work against  industry that hurts the environment, as well as a way to show the world what we can be, if we give ourselves the chance.

To sign up for a membership, or to give a great gift to a loved one, you can find all of the information you need on their home page: http://www.unitedplantsavers.org/

Wishing everyone a wonderful Holiday season! ~ Much Love~ Kat

Growing Valentines: Flowers that Grow & Never Die!

Let your love blossom this Valentine's day to come! Make up for those last minute efforts, and let us do the work! (Hey, you picked it out, there is something to be said for great taste!)

New in our line of "Living letters" and "Growing Gifts", are our 100% handmade, up-cycled paper flowers (made from scratch by myself and my partner in crime Tony Colque).
Just like our growing gift ornaments for the holiday season, these babies grow wonderful organic and heirloom gardens after you are done! This flower line will house beautiful butterfly blends, edible flower blends, and our favorite; Wildflower!

These dainty roses make the perfect, romantic statement to that special someone in your life, that say, "Like this rose, my love for you will forever bloom, but never die."~~~And that's a fact!

 

These flowers will come in other species styles(Violets, Tulips, etc.), but they are already being reserved for the holiday, so we will see how many come out!
These growing flowers will come in sets of 3 and 5, and will be available for custom batch orders, and will be added to our Wedding favor line dropping this Winter (just in time for Spring!)
(When custom ordering event batches, we request that we be contacted at least six months in advanced)

Dress up your special dinner, make a romantic path of petals, or a sensual trail leading to the bedroom!
These lovely accents are up to the task, and make a beautiful garden for two, just in time for Spring!

We will be posting our Valentine's gift boxes complete with a three pack of these cute little buds.
Stay tuned for more colors, styles and for our Organic Vanilla massage oil for two!


Have a great week everyone! ~Kat~

Great Talent at the CCAD Holiday Art Sale

I would like to give a shout out to some great talents at the show. These three were inspiring classmates and continue to wow me beyond art school. Guys, your work is great, keep doing what you do!

Maxe Smith:

Maxe CCAD Holiday Art Sale 2011

Enter the world inside the head of Maxe Smith, Illustrator, toy maker, and creature creator! We did a thread including her whimsical desk gnome Chomsky--Tending your indoor environments!

I know Maxe sold out with her amazing prints, you will have to check them out, words cannot explain!

"Howard"

To see all of her wonderful creations visit Maxe's Creevil creatures at www.MaxeSmith.com.

For updates: http://maxesmith.blogspot.com/

Need a creature to take home? http://www.etsy.com/shop/Maxeville

~~~

Quinn Kellogg

Quinn is a very talented painter among other great skills that he possesses - and was a great inspiration to me all those early mornings in the B & E Fine arts building. I can still smell those vanilla lattes from Crane center, mixed with the subtle scents of oil paints...;) Thank you for the memories Quinn!

Quinn and Customer CCAD Holiday Art Sale 2011

You can see Quinn's beautiful work here: http://www.quinnkellogg.com/

And updates at his blog: http://qkillustration.blogspot.com/

One of his amazing, colorful landscapes would make a great gift for that special someone this holiday season :)

~~~

Maggy O'Reilly

Don't forget to check out Maggy's great work. A wonderful illustrator and print maker with wonderful nature subjects (some of my favorites are her horses and deer) - Maggy had a beautiful table at the Holiday sale, very impressive and inspiring. Maggy is a very talented friend and former classmate from our years at CCAD. Your work is lovely my dear!

 

"Fly With Me"

 Nothing could be better than custom illustrated Christmas cards! Beautiful!

Grab some of these at her shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/OReillyInk?ref=seller_info

View more of Maggy's work: http://www.oreillyink.com/

Thank you to all of my friends for letting me feature their work here, I'm going to consider this one of my "inspiration threads", as the work I have seen from these three truly is inspiring to my creative juices!

I hope my readers will check out the amazing work from these three (and perhaps this will help with holiday gift giving!)

I hope everyone is happy, healthy and warm this Holiday season! ~ Namaste my friends~

Holiday Art Sale Success & Updates!

Thank you to everyone who came out to the bi annual CCAD student and Alumni art sale. The Simple Siren had a great show that exceeded our expectations! We could not have done it without all of the support from friends and patrons like you!

I had a wonderful set up that my other half (Tony - hiding behind the Rosemary bonsai :) created from a beautiful purple pencil Cedar that had to be cut down. It is wonderful to be able to use this amazing specimen to showcase the Simple Siren collection.

We took the opportunity to release some new soaps that we have not had in our shop yet (don't worry Etsy fans! We will have these up for you too!) Our new Organic Holiday Cucumber cold process soap with whole organic cranberry was a great hit, as well as our new take on our Pampered Pauper Jasmine Citrus soap, with a new Organic Oatmeal scrub that is a GREAT soothing soap for irritated or dry skin (or for those who get poison ivy in the warmer months!)

Pampered Pauper (top) Cucumber Cranberry (bottom RT)

We had a very positive response to our Raw Cocoa Nib and Peppermint Musk Moisturizing soap, great for your skin AND hair. This lovely Cocoa Butter based soap will be available in the shop for Valentines day (yes it is fast approaching folks!)

And our living letters were a hit! If I had known that we would sell out I would have brought more! I am happy to fill the orders for some custom growing gifts now that the show is over and look forward to getting my new Organic heirloom seeds from a local dispensary I have been speaking with.



There will be new surprises for Valentine's Day gifts in the shop, Growing Gifts and Living letters for the occasion, so stay tuned and check on in before the day :)

Growing Gift ornament and 1 week sprouts

And in lieu of our own wedding (September 2012), I will be showcasing some of the Wedding party gifts and Subtleties that we have been developing this coming Spring.

Batch orders will be available, however we ask that we be contacted at least six months prior to the event, this will ensure that you get exactly what you want for your big day (one of the most important days of course!)

We hope everyone had a great weekend ~~~ Good Night to All!