get well gremlin softie (free pattern)

The Get Well Gremlins are finished and I have 2 little ladies who are quite excited about them! They are kind of a twist on a dream pillow but you don’t use dry herbs as the stuffing. Each gremlin has a pocket to hold a cotton ball or........READ MORE.

ivory soap experiment (ptoe- oxygen)

Do you know what this is?????? Nope, it’s not shaving cream.



It’s a bar of Ivory soap after being cooked in the microwave for a couple of minutes! It’s a very cool experiment that you must try with your little ones! I developed a little booklet to guide this experiment. This is also a great experiment to do with the PTOE when discussing Oxygen. READ MORE......

Acorn Jewlery

One of the most beautiful finds in nature, to me, is the acorn. Acorns are so whimsical with those cute little caps and the crafting possibilities are endless with them! Don’t they make the most perfect little pocket to hold more of nature’s little treasures? READ MORE.........

Lavender Herbal Doll

The lavender has been dried; now it is time to do the tedious job of getting all the dried blooms off the stalk. We have to do this outside because it is so potent; even outdoors it causes a lot of sneezes! The Little Ladies worked hard on this; (sigh) but only for about 30 minutes.

Fauna took the lavender experience to a whole new level and made this lovely lavender doll with peppermint hair. She wanted it to be all natural, but found that rubberbands worked the best to hold the doll together. Needless to say, we still have a lot of lavender blossoms to pull from their stems!

By the way, I'm very busy working on the new, improved and soon to be organized 5 Orange Potatoes at Wordpress. Just remember that it is still under construction. ;) And, following Wordpress sites are easy; just copy the WP address, go to your Blogger dashboard, click "ADD", and paste address into the URL. Don't follow me yet at WP or you will have a FULL dashboard of 5 Orange Potatoes while I transfer the posts. I will continue to post here until the WP site is complete. Thanks again for all the support you have all given me. Even those of you that haven't commented, I can't believe how much traffic has gone to Faunarain. Thank you!

Lisa :)

Easy Herbal Syrup (Lavender)

You Need:
1/3 cup dried lavender
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups water

Steps:
1. Combine lavender, sugar, and water in a medium saucepan.
2. Bring to boil, turn down the heat to a simmer.
3. Simmer until syrup thickens and is bubbling in a thick frothy manner (about 45 min.).
4. Cool and strain.
5. Discard lavender.
6. Very good drizzled on soy vanilla ice cream.

*This recipe can be used with any herb of your choice.

Make a Lavender Wand

Lavender has been used for centuries for fragrance, to freshen linens and to keep the moths away. Elizabethan ladies used to gather lavender and transform it into these delightful wands or bottles to put in their linen cupboards. The ribbon traps the lavender blossoms and keeps them snuggly inside the wand so they don't scatter all over the clothing.

Book- The Pleasure of Herbs by Phyllis Shaudys

To make the wands you need:
9-15 (must be an odd number) straight stems of fresh lavender about 12 inches long (as long as you can cut them)
About 2-4 yards of 1/4" wide ribbon
Rubber band or string

Steps:

1. Strip the leaves off the stems and tie string or a rubber band at the base of the buds in the bundle.

2. Hold the lavender in your left hand with the buds facing down; gently bend the stems down one by one all the way around to encase the buds.

This is how your lavender should look after pulling the stems down.

3. Starting at the bent end, take the ribbon, tuck it under a stem and secure it with your left thumb; begin to weave over and under the stems 1 or 2 at a time. Pull the ribbon tightly as you go along.

4. Continue to weave until the buds are tightly encased inside the ribbon. I continued to weave past the buds; it's really up to you when you want to stop weaving after the buds are completely encased.

5. Wrap the ribbon tightly around the bottom to make a pretty finish. Tie a knot at the end to secure.

The Little Ladies use the lavender wands as fairy wands and....

SWORDS! Violence by lavender; even little girls have thier rowdy moments! (Sounds like a A China Bayles Mystery)!

Besides fairy wands and swords, you can put them in your closet, in your dresser, or you could place one in a gift box for someone that you are giving clothing to. Enjoy!

Lavender Chocolate Cake

A blogger friend, Such Lovely Freckles, mentioned a delicious lavender chocolate candybar on a post a while back. I thought the combination of lavender and chocolate sounded heavenly! I was talking to Rainy about her birthday cake; she always picks unusual cakes for me to bake (I am not much of a cake maker at all, Rainy LOVES to challenge me). I mentioned the chocolate lavender to her, did a recipe search and found this recipe for Lavender Chocolate Cake at Bake Space. Rainy loved the idea!

What you need:
3/4 cup milk (I used soy)
2 tbsp. dried lavender
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
6 egg whites
3 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup cocoa
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

To make the lavender milk:

Bring milk and lavender to a boil in a small saucepan. Turn off the heat, cover and let steep until you are ready to use. Strain and discard the lavender before adding the milk to the cake.

To make the cake:

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees
-Cream butter and sugar, then add lavender milk, baking powder, salt, egg whites, and vanilla extract.
-Blend in cocoa and flour.
-Pour into 2 greased 9-inch cake pans. Bake 30-35 minutes.
-Let cool.

Cake Assembly:
Level each cake by carving off the extra on top. Top one layer with fudge icing, then assemble one layer on top of another; ice in more fudge and decorate.

*2 T lavender buds was the perfect amount of lavender in this cake. With each bite you could taste a hint of lavender without it tasting like you were eating a "cleaning product" (as my sister's co-worker would say). It went very well with the vanilla soy ice cream! Enjoy!