New Lavender Wands

These are a few of the new lavender wands that I just finished up. These were made from the lavender I got from Tuscan Heights Organic Lavender Farm during their Lavender Festival this year. I tried a new technique I saw some people doing at the festival where they split the stems into two bunches and weaving between them. I liked the way it turned out. I will be posting a couple on Etsy in the next few days.

Newest Earrings

I just finished these gold Fleur de Lis earrings with crystals. I upcycled the gold fleur de lis pieces from an another pair of clip-on earrings that I inherited from a very interesting older woman in Arizonia. The crystals were taken from a necklace I received on the same trip down to the border. I'll be posting these on WillowLily my jewelry site in the next few days.

This is a lousy picture, but you get the idea. These were constructed our of the band of an antique watch. They are very sparkly and pretty. I'm not sure they are completely finished yet. We'll see if they evolve into anything else.

Check out more of my creations at www.willowlily.etsy.com

Garden Fresh Dinner

Step One: Complain endlessly how useless it is to cook for one. You do all the cooking and cleaning up, it just isn't fair. Resentfully dig through the cupboard until you find the organic ecofarmed risotto or call me I seem to have mass amounts of health carbs.

Step Two: Saute rice in olive oil from the old country. A client at my mom's work actually has barrels of it flown in from Sicily. Apparently, she bathes in it or something. She's in her 70's and her skin looks amazing so I'm thinking this is something I might try. Anyway....

Step Three: Add water, boil, and then simmer. Quickly get bored waiting and go out and water the garden, talk to the cat, and pick basil. We have basil growing everywhere, not so much because of my amazing gardening skills, but because my mom forgets that we have basil and keeps buying more. I'm not complaining, there's no such thing as too much basil. Come back inside, stir rice, and cut up zucchini. Not just any zucchini, but the one and only zucchini my garden produced this year. My plants have definitely been under achievers this year. Which I totally understand, some years you just aren't feeling it. Slice up your one and only treasured zucchini and saute in amazing oil from the Sicilian lady.

Step Four: Decide you need a salad. Cut up red and yellow tomatoes and the fresh basil. Look everywhere in the fridge for mozzerella cheese and find nothing but string cheese. Decide its the same thing and cut it up. Top with Balsamic and voila you've got a garden salad.

Step Five: Everything is done. Throw it on a plate and marvel at the fact that you actually made a meal instead of just talking about it and eating saltines in bed.

Voila, you have a delicious vegetarian dinner!

Have a great day!

This has been cooking with Willow

Corn Update

Finally, after countless begging and threats my little brother T dug me some holes for the corn. I'm not sure if the corn will actually produce this year since it got into the ground so late, but it's worth a try.

Etsy Finds: Garden Markers

A few weeks ago when my mom and I were up at the Lavender Festival we saw some really cute garden markers. They really caught our attention, obviously, because we even took a picture of one of them.


I decided to search for some markers on Etsy and the first ones I found were these cute little nickel ones by Nina Gibson Designs http://www.ninagibsondesigns.etsy.com/ . They would be perfect for any little herb garden, be it on your deck or kitchen window. They sell for $28 for a set of four and can be printed with the herbs or plants of your choosing. This would be a great gift for a beginning gardener or anyone who enjoys cooking with fresh herbs.


The thyme marker is made by metal garden art http://www.metalgardenart.etsy.com/ . You can choose from a selection of 13 different herbs and plants. I like the simplicity of this design and plus as it rusts it gains more of that garden charm. The markers are priced at $9.95 each.


Last, but not least these markers by Art by Jack http://www.artbyjack.etsy.com/ are pretty freaking cool. I love the way the letters have the look of being stacked precariously. You can get a set of ten for $64 (the stakes sell for $8 a piece, so essentially you get 2 free). These would look great in nearly any garden, I know they would look amazing in mine. I might need to start dropping some hints. It's not completely ridiculous to ask for random surprise gifts, right?

Pumpkin in July

So I obviously jumped the gun with the pumpkin. It serves as our dinner table center piece, because we aren't quite sure what to do with it yet. I started the other pumpkins after this one, I think they will be ready closer to their normal date in the fall.

Creativity Strikes...Finally!

My creativity has been a little lacking, and by a little I mean I had none. Every time I sat down to work on my jewelry or art, I'd come up with a billion excuses why now was not a good time. My favorite excuse being 'I better get online and make sure the airline tickets to France I should have bought 3 weeks ago are the same price.' I obviously don't struggle with procrastination at all. By the way, the tickets to France are still the same and I think I'm almost ready to buy them. I figured you've been dying to know.

Anyway, so last week on a scorchingly hot day I drove past Joanne's fabric and decided it had to be cooler in there than inside my car. I don't use the air conditioning in the car unless I have an important date to go to, hence I don't use the air conditioning. Joanne's was delightfully cool inside and I took my sweet time going through the aisles filling a basket with beads and other items imperative to jewelry design. I also got some crafty stuff to start making prototypes for fascinators (pretty hair clips) for Cam's upcoming wedding. I finally got in line and waited behind the slowest woman on earth. She couldn't decide what she wanted, she thought everything she grabbed was on sale and argued with the cashier, then she couldn't find her debit card, and when she did she decided after swipping her card that she wanted to pay for part of it in cash. These kind of things annoy me to no end and I was doing some very loud and deliberate yoga/meditation breathing to calm myself down. I am pretty sure I was making everyone around me uncomfortable because 1) I could hardly contain my frustration (I don't hide my emotions well) and 2) I was breathing so loud it sounded like I was in labor. I finally made it out to my car, which felt more like an oven and went home.

The next day I sat down and spent some quality creative time in my artist studio aka my disaster of a room. I played around with some hair clip designs, what I came up with is nothing like what Cam wants for the bridesmaid in her wedding, but it gave me chance to play and get used to working with hairclips. I also tried my hand at making rings. It was fun and they came out a lot better than expected. I also created some wire and freshwater pearl earrings. These all turned out pretty well and gave me some hope that the well of my creativity hadn't run dry.

I am hoping to stay on a roll and set aside a little time for jewelry stuff daily. I think this would keep me better organized and help me retain some of my creative leanings. If creativity and art are a muscle you have to work it regularly, right? Then I have to go to the next step and list things on Etsy, that's a whole other battle I fight with myself.