Tag Archives: clover

October 4, 2023 · 12:00 am

Preparations

Merry meet all,

Pumpkin season is here. The Paranormal Symposium is a few days away. I have been busy preparing for it. I can’t wait to attend. 

The beautiful black plush blanket that I ordered from Killstar arrives tomorrow! I can’t wait for that either. The blanket has a spiderweb print and will keep me warm. I want to download lots of photos of my ancestors for Samhain. I also want to make them a beautiful offering of golden flowers this year. I decided on goldenrod and marigolds, and maybe asters. I am sure they will appreciate the offering. 

The host of the Paranormal Symposium, Elliott Van Dusen, wants to interview me about my blog, The Paranormal Quill after the Symposium. I am happy about that. It is nice to get some recognition after all my hard work. I have had a long go of it. I will have to prepare for that too. It should be interesting. 

I bought a cool black glossy nail polish the other day. The brand is Opi and the color is black onyx. I love the color and the quality of the nail polish. I am almost all set for the Paranormal Symposium. I just have to decide what to wear. I washed two gothy witchy dresses and they will be clean in time for the big day. I bought a beautiful black handbag today on Spring Garden near the Public Gardens. It is so lovely. I hand washed that too, as it had a strong scent. I want to use that bag the day of the event. Yes this has taken a lot of thought. I need spending money for lunch and maybe cabfare. It is a day long event so that is why I have been thinking everything through. The black boots I wanted to wear aren’t ready. I have an alternate pair. The clothes are clean. Yup I do believe I just have to enjoy myself and relax. I even asked my Mom to give me a wake up call early in the morning. I take the bus so I have to get up early early in the morning. I have to be ready by 8 am to leave or be there at the time. I know where the event is to be held and I know which bus to take. Now the old me would have scrambled at the last minute. This time I have prepared well in advance. Yeah being this organized sure feels better. 

I even checked out hairstyle options. Maybe not that necessary but you never know. I mean we would seriously prepare for a job interview right? Right. I really want to make an impact with my appearance.

Penny will be groomed later in the month. I needed the money today to buy groceries and to pay for duties and taxes for the quilt to be shipped to me. I hate that but I had to do it. The blanket was 60% off. I wouldn’t have bought it otherwise, considering it is mailed from the States. 

I harvested roses, yarrow, black horehound, asters, lavender, apples and red clover. I dried them save for the apples in my dehydrator. Now they are stored in jars. The herbs look beautiful even when dried. I ground up a large quantity of black pepper and I ground up a loaf of white bread. I stored the black pepper in the same jar and stored the bread crumbs in a ziplock bag in the freezer. I want to use up the food that I have because it is so expensive these days. Yup times are tough right now. I am not buying a new outfit for the big day. I intend to use what I already have. That is what the happiest people do. They make the most and best of what they have. I have nice things and I try to make them last me as long as I can. 

I will have to get to know black horehound. I am not too acquainted with that herb but it is not that accepted amongst herbalists. One more herb to learn! 

I am a student of life! 

Blessed Be, Spiderwitch )O(

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July 13, 2022 · 12:27 pm

Herbal Crafts )O(

Merry meet all,

I am enjoying my herbal studies at the Herbal Academy. The flowers I’m pressing are beautiful. I plan to press a good deal more flowers soon. I”m making a flower essence out of the local summery flowers here. That includes borage, mint, lavender petals, red clover, chamomile. Mmmmm I can’t wait. I am steeping the essence outdoors in a glass bowl in my garden. Soon in another hour or two I shall strain the flowers and make the potion with brandy! Sounds good to me. 

There are so many herbs outside in my garden and the nature trail. I sure have my pick of plants. Borage, lavender, chamomile, lemon balm, burdock, goldenrod, clover, and many others. I love living here as it makes my studies at the Academy much easier. The herbs I need grow in abundance around me. This encourages me to be more sustainable in my practice and to be an earth steward! Right now, I am loving the ample sunshine and loving that that will aid my floral essence in my garden. The bowl of flowers must absorb the sunlight. It is crucial to the floral essence being made properly. I plan to strain the flowers with a strainer outdoors. I am sure the glass bowl of flowers soaking in water will have some bugs in it!

I plan to do a bookbinding project of the herbal course material too. I will finish it this coming weekend. I just have to complete some stuff before that. It really is a weekend project. I promise to show photos here once I am done. I already have the supplies and I have bound/ covered the book covers in bookbinding cloth. I am not anywhere near done. I have to sew the folios together and still cover the book covers with more layers. That will give it a nice seamless look. I hope this goes well. I want to decorate the pages with pressed flowers and of course, butterfly stickers. 

There are so many crafts I can do! Flower pressing, flower essences, bookbinding, or making floral handmade paper – I am only limited by my imagination! I am covered in mosquito bites. I’m also waiting for the delivery of a beautiful embroidered leather binder from Etsy. It’s traveling as I type from the UK to Canada. I hope I don’t have to wait too long. I am using the binder for my materia medica. I can’t wait! It’s so beautiful. I think my herb notes deserve to be stored in something truly beautiful. 

On top of the herbal crafts I mentioned above, I am also helping the other plants in my garden grow to their very best. I’m growing veggies too. Celery, tomatoes, squash, parsley, coriander, lovage, basil, mint, pumpkin, potatoes, a carrot or two, beans, root veggies like turnip and radish and beets. I’m also growing chives, shallots, tons of nasturtiums, raspberry, strawberry, and blueberry. The haskap berries are past their season now. The bean vines are so aggressive. I bought two poles to support the scarlet runner bean vines. They are growing a little too well. The elecampane is yet to flower. The flower buds are formed. I am just waiting on pins and needles for it to blossom! 

I bought a big tool chest from Canadian Tire. It doesn’t hold hammers and nails. Instead, the huge chest holds all my craft supplies. I now have more room in my broom closet. It filled up fast. I got the big chest on sale. I just love it. Everything I need is finally in one place and I have a place for everything! I can now enjoy doing more herbal crafts with a lot less stress. I just love the big ‘pirate’ chest. 

I wish you dear readers would let me know what herbal crafts you are doing now. Do let me know in the comments below. 

BB Spiderwitch

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June 21, 2022 · 8:37 pm

Summer Solstice Lantern )O(

Merry meet all,

Happy Summer Solstice!!! I hope you are all celebrating the summer solstice. I did too and I’m going to tell you all about it in this post. I will post a link below to the blog post from Herbal Academy that tells you how to make it. I’m taking the summer course on how to press flowers at the Herbal Academy. 

To make a Summer Solstice Lantern, clean and wash a large glass jar like one you use for pasta sauce. Let it air dry. For this project, I didn’t press the flowers first but they are supposed to be pressed. Also, instead of white glue or Mod Podge glue, I used a hot glue gun. I used the watered down white glue at first. I discovered that a hot glue gun was better at making flowers adhere to the jar. Afterwards, I bought and used Mod Podge to give it a permanent finish. It looks great and yours will too. 

You will need the following supplies:

  • a hot glue gun and glue
  • tweezers
  • scissors
  • a clean dry jar
  • flowers
  • white glue
  • Mod Podge glue
  • paper towel and a work surface – glue can get messy
  • twine, a wire
  • salt
  • tealights

Ok let’s get started. So once your jar is clean and dry, set it down on your workspace. Have old newspaper and paper towel nearby. This can get messy. If you pressed the flowers ahead of time, that’s great. I used the flowers I picked today for this project. Clean off any bugs and snip off the stems. It’s a good idea to use flat faced flowers for this project such as buttercup, white Shasta daisies, violets, red clover leaves. Use a paintbrush to dab on the glue of your choice to the jar. Before the glue dries, pick up the delicate flower with the tweezers and stick it on the jar where you dabbed the glue. Apply the flower with gentle firm pressure. 

This is tricky. You can’t tear or cut the flower. I brushed from the centre of the flower out to the petals. I dabbed the glue over the face of the flower in gentle, outward strokes. I suggest making sure the flower face stays flat. So be gentle with this step. Add more flowers to the jar. Think about the design you want it to have. Let the jar dry thoroughly. Be patient with this project. Arrange the flowers around the jar as you choose. Keep dabbing glue on to the jar and applying gentle firm pressure till you are satisfied with it. Place stems around flowers or under flowers or in whichever design you choose. 

Gently dab glue over the flowers. I suggest using Mod Podge for this step. It gives the flowers a frosted finish. When it has all dried, then you can proceed to the next step. You can wrap a wire around the opening of the jar. I secured mine with a dab of hot glue. I love my hot glue gun, can you tell? The instructions on how to do this are in the link. Then add a few inches of salt into the jar. Put a tea light in perhaps one with essential oils added to the candle, and watch the candle glow in your personal Summer Solstice Lantern. I hope you have fun with this and show me pictures of your own summery crafts. 

Below is the link to the blog post from the Herbal Academy:

Link: https://theherbalacademy.com/flower-lanterns/ 

Happy Solstice!

Blessings, Spiderwitch

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September 30, 2021 · 12:50 pm

Autumn Herbs

Merry meet all,

Tomorrow is October 1st. I have a new rolling cart to store my multiple jars of herbs. By. herbs, I mean of course seeds, bark, leaves, flowers. I had to assemble the cart and that was a nightmare. Are you all getting ready for Samhain? I am! I am also preparing for the Materia Medica course I am taking at the Herbal Academy in addition to the Introductory Herbal course I am already taking. That does involve getting more organized, which is why I bought the cart.

I ordered seeds from a company on Etsy. They are as follows; German chamomile, black swan poppy, Scott bonnet pepper, black cumin, purple echinacea, halloween calendula, Howden pumpkin, borage, sunflower, black tar poppy, chef’s pick parsley, Larkspur, anise, purple echinacea, purple salsify, Vietnamese cilantro, and foxglove blend. Next spring, I will be having fun planting all that!  I gathered the Chinese lanterns, burdock seeds, mullein seeds, and I will soon gather the nasturtium seeds from my garden. I gathered mullein in an empty field and it also grows on the nature trail. A witch hazel grows on the trail too! 

A materia medica means healing materials. It basically means a book about herbal profiles. The profiles are called monographs. I plan to have the most amazing material media by the time I am done studying. The material media course teaches you how to complete a herbal profile. I have access to the Herbarium. I can download any herb monograph I choose to. I ordered a herb journal – titled My Herbology journal, A Green Witch Journal from Amazon. I also ordered a paper making screen deckle and mold! 

Here is the link to the journal: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B08TQ7DX6J/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 Several herbs that I need for the course grow on the nature trail. Goldenrod, burdock, mullein, asters, raspberry, elderberry, chokeberry, coltsfoot, queen Anne’s lace, black elderberry, staghorn sumac, creeping juniper, perennial sow thistle, red clover, and  thistle all grow on the trail. I may have already mentioned this. I have an app on my phone that helps me identify plants. If you want to forage in the wild, bring gloves to protect you, a charged cellphone that has an app for identifying plants, wear something to protect you from bug bites and poisonous plants, a water bottle to stay hydrated, and scissors. It helps to carry a big plastic bag or cloth bag to hold the herbs you gather. Don’t consume anything if you are not sure. You could make yourself sick. I want to gather goldenrod next summer to dye a piece of fabric yellow. I just want to try it. !!!

I still have to dehydrate the elderberries. I brewed a jar of elderberry, rhubarb and blueberry am.  I should added cinnamon and clove. I am making a jar of elderberry tincture. The berries were dried and I added vodka. I labeled the jar and also lined the top of the jar with natural waxed paper. The metal can’t contaminate the mixture. I can’t wait to try it. But I do want to caution: elderberries contain cyanide, so please if you make a remedy using elderberries, use black or purple berries – not green, and be careful. I will make the tincture last a long time. I don’t plan to consume it every day. The berries are not cooked for making a tincture. Some cyanide could still be present in the berries. Everything in moderation. 

I gathered herbs for my first lesson in the materia medica course. They were lemon balm, goldenrod, thyme, lavender, mint and chamomile. It grows in the garden and on the nature trail.I need to study the herbs for the courses. (What a hardship, eh?) There are so many herbs to learn about and I live in the right environment. Fall is here. Many of the plants are winding down for the long cold rest. The nature trial is now full of the thistles, queen Anne’s lace, burdock, goldenrod all going to seed. The queen Anne’s lace seedbeds resemble bird’s nests. 

I have to collect the raspberries from my garden. The tomatoes are still ripening. The pumpkin patch is growing! I have tried for 11 years to grow a pumpkin patch and now I have! Hopefully the frost will hold off! I pickled my own cucumbers. The flavour is truly divine. I stored two jars of applesauce in the freezer too. I am well stocked. I have to puree the pumpkin. So much to do, so little time. 

I am enjoying my studies at the Herbal Academy. Well obviously right? I decorate my binder with butterfly stickers, protect the notes and printouts in sheet protectors, and do my best to keep it organized. I want to be a herbalist and work in a trade that involves herbs. It will be a long road but an interesting one!!

The link to the Herbal Academy- in case you want to study there!!

https://theherbalacademy.com/my-account/?awt_a=5cXw&awt_l=Bv79G&awt_m=mUTf3FOR61wS3Xw

Blessings, Spiderwitch

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