Drying Blackberry Leaves for Tea

Just in case anybody has a doubt...I blame Sacha for EVERYTHING!

The endless hours of gardening, drying, sewing, cooking and learning...

she has caused it all! 

♥♥♥

She has an Excalibur dehydrator, so of course nothing else would do but that I try one too!

I had a dehydrator years ago when we owned the apple house and have dried countless bags of apples to sell, but nothing since then. 
(Can't imagine why...yeesh)

So I filled it up with strawberries, apples and bananas.

Then as we were looking at Celestial Seasoning tea blends I noticed that
blackberry leaves were in several, got to looking and of course now I had to go pick
blackberry leaves!  My grandmother would think I had lost my mind. LOL

And yes, I now have a "Tea Garden" planted to make my own tea blends!
Again..all Sacha's fault!

So I grabbed my bucket (ok, it was a walmart bag),
grabbed a few dogs to protect me from snakes and turtles...and ticks...lots of ticks and chiggers!

And off I went to the wild blackberry patch!

Perfect timing, they are just getting ready to bloom.


So I picked...and picked some more...bled a lot...did I say you really need gloves for this?


 


Went back to the house, spread them out on the trays, dried it and had a nice bag of leaves.



Gave it some thought, did I need MORE?

After looking at tea blends again...every one of them uses blackberry leaves!

Arggghhh.....

So this time I put gloves on (SO MUCH EASIER), put on my bug repellent and back to the ponds we go.

Did all of the above a second time...sigh...and now have FOUR bags of dried leaves.

Sacha assures me that will make enough tea blends for a lifetime...

Do we believe her? Or is she once again messing with my head?



It looks pretty in jars. And we know everyone has room for that many jars right?

Nahhh...baggies it is.

I'm sure someone somewhere is horrified they are in baggies.

Ah well..... ♥

Top Rated eBay Seller

I think we may conclude by now that Brenda and I are NOT very good bloggers. It's an "all or nothing" thing. We either blog three times a day, or not at all.

But some things just need to be spilled.

Like moi (Sacha), being overly excited on the fact that our Boudoir of Paris has received the Top Rated Plus status. Now >>that<< means something, right? It feels like being rewarded! Our customers actually >>like<< what we're doing. :)

So when I'm all hyped up about having read the eBay message, telling us that we achieved this wonderful, brilliant, genius accomplishment, yelling at Brenda "YAY, WE BECAME A TOP RATED PLUS SELLER", all she gives me is a "LOL, I know".

Hmph.

Turns out that Brenda once became a Power Seller and that a status like that (and this) is something that's as "easily lost as it is gained".

Oh well. For the time being I keep yelling and screaming "YAY, WE ARE A TOP RATED PLUS SELLER".

And will continue to do my best of efforts to keep our bizz going as it is going now.

Thank you very much, dear customers, for your help in us having achieved this! We couldn't have done it without you. :)

Amicalement,
Sacha.

A Soft Bohemian? Minimal Bohemian?

As usual, all this is Sacha's fault! 

I wanted a lamp off Ebay...

She said "Get it!"...

I said "I don't NEED a lamp, but I love it! 

If I get it I HAVE to decorate my bedroom and make it pretty, instead of ignoring a pile of clothes and sleeping on a blanket, rather than make up the bed!"

Of course, I got the lamp...sigh...

A nice vintage Goofus Glass swag lamp.

 

 

So with the lamp winging it's way towards me, I started looking for inspiration.

 

I already knew what I wanted to do with the lamp, the room is blank so I'm building the new room from the lamp up.

 

I searched for French Bedrooms, and Romantic Bedrooms, and Shabby Chic bedrooms and got a lot...well...WHITE.

 

 

 

But....I don't DO white. Never liked white. Never will.

 

 

 

 It's pretty but the first dog or cat that jumped on it would leave paw prints and heaven only knows what I would do it, so not an option!

So by now I'm confused...french romantic bedrooms search should have pulled up something I loved...right?

WRONG! I finally stumbled across this one and said Yes! Now I'm on the right track!

 

 

So now I'm searching in Bohemian and finding tons of stuff I like. 

 

 

 

Of course, no one does Bohemian like Magnolia Pearl!

 

But as much as I love her style, it's a bit MUCH for everyday living for me.

So I've discovered that I'm NOT romantic french, I'm somewhere in between Simple and Bohemian...

So a soft, minimal Bohemian?

Bohemian Romantic?

I guess we'll see!