Works In Progress, Restorative Bath Salts, Herbal First Aid Kits

What's that crazy girl working on now, you ask? So much I don't have enough time in the day. Here are some things that I'm currently working on:

Restorative Bath Salt for Cancer Patients

I've had many friends and family, not to mention myself, who have suffered with Cancer or who are suffering with it. One thing they tell me over and over again is that they are so tired, so weak, in pain and achy. Plenty of bath salts can relax muscles, plenty can revive you, but I am currently researching the newest information on homeopathic cancer treatments and ways to incorporate that into my products. Some things I have found very interesting is the studies on Frankincense Essential Oils and its healing properties, Green Tea, Ginger Root, and Raspberry Leaf. Since I have all these items in stock, and others which are also known to help those battling cancer, I will be trying to create a bath salt that will not only aid in the fight, but also relieve the symptoms. Sure, I could just throw them all in, but you may end up smelling weird, and who wants that??

Herbal First Aid Kits

Not only am I working on increasing my inventory and creating new items to sell, but I am on a mission to eliminate 90% of all over the counter medicines from my medicine cabinet. I'm sure I'm not the only one. It is my goal and dream to have a cabinet filled with herbal remedies, oils, creams, teas, and tinctures for every scenario. I can't imagine I am alone in this desire, but not everyone can buy everything they'll need and put it all together without spending a fortune and enormous amounts of time and energy researching it and creating it...so I'm going to create it for them, and you! I am currently putting together some basic lists of items that one may want around the house for different seasons, different reasons, etc. Once I have made enough to create a comprehensive kit (one for each season) I will offer them up for sale! What's not to love? All organic, all natural, and healthy!

As I always tell everyone, I love suggestions, I love new ideas and requests! So, if you have a particular item you can't find elsewhere let me know! If you have an ailment and would like to find an herbal aid for it just convo me or comment and ask! I may get ideas but most of my products come from inspiration for you all!!!! Help me help you! Help me help YOU! hahaha

Upcoming Redesign,Vacation, and August's Reading Sale

I just wanted to let you all know that I will be redesigning my shop, logos, etc. over the next week or so with the help of a talented Etsy Graphic Designer. I'm very excited about it and can't wait to see what she comes up with. I do love my red Buddha logo but I'm finding it difficult to print packaging because it is so bright and hard to work with. I'm very hopeful she will come up with something that really speaks to my desires for my shop. Once I have a design I'll let you all know!

Also, Thursday August 6th through Sunday August 9th I will be out of the state for my sister's wedding in Massachusetts and won't be able to respond to requests or e-mails until I return. I won't be closing the shop but all orders will be responded to when I return.

As for August's sale, I have whispered it to some of you, but I will let you know now that the Reading on sale for next month will be the Past Life Reading. I know I just did that reading not too long ago but I got a big response and requests for more. So, August 1st, this Saturday, my Past Life Reading will go from $25 to $18.

Chocolate Covered Cherrie Salve - OMG!!!!

I just finished a batch of my new salve...its thicker than a cream and a lotion, and is so amazingly moisturizing. Everyone who's smelled it has wanted to eat it. Yet its not overpowering.

Oh, my, YUM! Don't eat this lotion, don't do it! I mean, its all natural, organic,etc, but it's not for eating!

So many wonderful and skin nourishing ingredients, I don't know where to begin. How about our luscious lotion base made with Jojoba oil? Not impressed? How about we add 100% organic Cocoa Butter? Still no? Well, then we'll add our own signature organic oil mixture which includes Apricot Kernal oil, calendula flowers, chamomile flowers, Jasmine Flowers, and Grapeseed Oil. Yup, I thought so.

This lotion is not only devine for the skin, leaves is incredibly soft and moisturized, but its also perfect for rashes and sensitive skin. I use the base oil alone for cracking skin and irritations and it is a miracle worker. Add the oil with the lotion and butter and you have an amazing treat.

The best part? The smell! The Apricot Kernal Oil, Grapeseed Oil and flower mixture all create an amazing smell or Marichino Cherries and the Cocoa Butter, well that smells like chocolate in the best possible way. Put them together and people will be drooling all over you! Chocolate Covered Cherries, here we come!

I'm offering it in 1 ounce tins and 2 and 3 ounce jars.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=28376010

You have got to check it out!

There Are a Few of My Favorite Things - Asian Edition

There are so many beautiful items on Etsy, that I just felt the need to do another Etsy Seller Feature, this time with an Asian theme! So this week I have art, ceramics, mobile, decals, and votive holders, oh my! All beautiful, all creative, and all Asian-inspired home decor!

Japanese Chiyogami paper is beautiful on its own, but add some mood lighting to them and they shine! This collection, Wonderland Blues, of votive holders is a wonderful addition to any room! Small, unobtrussive but what a statement! Just put a votive candle in them and watch them glow! Gamiworks has many beautiful chiyogami paper-inspired items in their shop, each more beautiful than the next!

Origami is an ancient form of paper-folding that has been around for centuries. Anyone who had art-class as a child tried their hand at it themselves, I'm sure. Myself, I've never been able to fold much more than a napkin. These beautiful Floating Lily Hanging Mobile by SimpleSweetDesign is much more impressive than my sad and sloppy Artichoke Heart, I must say. Dainty, lovely, beautiful in shades of green and yellow, this would look so sweet above a baby's crib, over a home-office desk, or hanging in a nice corner of a room, drawing all eyes to it the moment you walk in. And if greens and yellows aren't your colors? She has them in every color combo you can imagine, along with dozens of other beautiful pieces!




Speaking of drawing all eyes to something in the room, this beautiful
limited edition glicee print of tcatalano's Catching Desert Dreams makes me think of a beautiful desert hallucination. It also makes me think how nice it would look above my desk. At 9 x 12 inches, this print is just large enough to brighten up the room without taking it over!

Whether you're looking for some beautiful ACEOs, glicee prints, or original works, all tcatalanos items are just as creative and inspired.

Looking for a fun, vibrant place to plant some herbs or flowers? Brighten up the room with these gorgeous red and black handpainted ceramic pots, dotted with sweet cherry blossoms. MonkeyJunkyGoods has several different styles and colors available, these are pots are 4x4 and the perfect size for your own mini indoor garden!

Want to spruce up your apartment but can't paint the walls? Wall decals are the next best option, and this Lotus Blossom - Mehndi is perfect for those seeking to bring a little peace and meditation into the room. They come in a multitude of colors and are anice and large (about 22x22). This piece is certainly not the only one that BadassCustomDecals has, in fact their collection ranges from meditative to entertainment, children's room to toilet! Check out their Etsy store, check out their website! http://www.dalidecals.com/

I hope you enjoyed my little feature of fellow Etsy artisans! Next time will be some lovely sellers at Artfire!

Feedback Hugs

There is not much that can rival waking up exhausted, having a rough commute to work, logging onto your Etsy account to find that someone left you positive feedback and said lovely things about the product. That immediate glow of happiness and joy...knowing that someone really likes something that you made with your own hands and put so much time and effort into! I just want to reach through cyberspace and give that person a giant hug!

Now, I appreciate the glowing feedback I get for my readings, trust me I do, but I've always felt as though I participate very little in the readings. I simply go through the motions and allow Energy and my spirit guide to choose the best possible cards for that person. Sure, I may decipher the meaning from it, type it up nice, and add a little of my own thoughts and suggestions to them, but overall I would say readings are a group effort.

The teas and other herbal products (some of which I'm still testing) are 99% me. I research them, I read about the herbs, I check sources to make sure I know what possible side-effects they may have for people, I mix them, brew them, taste them, test them, design them, and package them. While I completely accept that I have my spirit guide to thank for a lot of the success I've had so far with making my teas and products, her inspiration and gentle guidance still leaves me with the majority of the work.

So, the feedback I get from my readings, while it lifts my spirits and has the double blessing of showing others that I'm not some internet fraud, is wonderful I have to admit that getting great feedback for my teas just makes my week! So don't forget to leave great feedback for others! Tip your waitresses!

This Weekend's Plans

Well folks, tonight is beef and beer date night. Tonight, the hunny and I grab a steak and a beer and go see Harry Potter 6: Half Blood Prince. Looking forward to it!

This weekend will, as usual, be a weekend of WORK! We have wedding planning to do and I desperately need to do some work on my Artfire and Etsy shops. I need some better pictures, I need to adjust my tags to they show up more often on search engines, I need to go through my descriptions and make sure they are accurate and spelled correctly (eeps)...and I need to post new items!

This weekend, sunlight permitting, I will be posting my new set of 5, count them, 5 tinctures! I am also happy to let you know that I have tried out my lovely new Dead Sea Mud mask and it has worked beautifully! I will also be posting that as well. If I have time I also want to make my new oil into a cream...but I don't have the wax, so we'll see how far I get with that. Yummy, fun weekend! What are your plans??

Why I Love/Hate Facebook

So I joined up with Facebook a week or so ago, both as myself and as a fan page for The Om Intention shop (feel free to become a fan..ack, I have "fans", I'm famous! Yay!). At first nothing happened, then I found some people I knew and "friended" them, now I'm getting in touch with all my old college friends and even my college roommate! It's been so wonderful seeing how everyone is doing but it is becoming addicting and perhaps dangerous!

See, the problem is we are getting ready to invite 87 people to our wedding thanks to a few unexpected direct invites made by my mother which is a lot more than we anticipated for our small little wedding. Now I'm seeing my college roommate, my dear friends that I shared so much with for 4 years of fun, embarrassment, and drunken moments that I will NEVER share with anyone else....and I want to invite them too! Oh hell, I want to invite EVERYONE! Come one, come all! Get ready to have some great food and do some ridiculous amounts of dancing! I want to shout it from the rooftops....then I think of the catering bill...how many more favors we'll have to order....and I begin to calm down.

So I came up with a plan! If you all buy TONS of tea and herbs from me between now and January I will have enough extra income to invite everyone to my wedding! And you'll have lots of wonderful tea and herbs and the heartwarming feeling of helping me make my wedding dreams come true. hehehe

This Weekend in Etsy Land

Wow, big weekend this weekend and I realized just how unprepared for overnight success I am! I know, it's only a temporary swell from being shown on the front page but I've sold about 8 items in 1 day and realized in the midst that a batch of sealable tea bags I bought are no good and won't seal! ACK!

I've special ordered 600 more so I should be in good shape for a while but I won't get them in until later this week. None of the herb stores or health food stores in the area carry them. Boo!!!

Also, I'm currently enmasked in a new concoction of mine that my partner and I are being guniea pigs for...mud masks! Specifically I have melded together some fabulous Dead Sea Mud, Tea Tree Oil and Rosemary Oil and we're awaiting the results. If it works I might have to sell it...this stuff feels great and I'm about to wash it off! Wish me luck!

New Tea Added - PMS Tea!

I finally put the finishing touches on my newest herbal tea, the PMS Tea! (aka Please Make it Stop Tea).

Ever feel like something has invaded your body, or the body of the woman in your life during a certain time of the month? The horrible cramps, the painful bloating, that feeling that you want to kill everyone around you for breathing too loud? Yeah, I thought so. This tea is a culmination of weeks of research and testing and today I can offer it up to those of you who suffer through PMS. Therefore I introduce to you Please Make it Stop Tea (aka PMS Tea).

PMS Tea is made from all organic products, Rooibos tea, lavender buds, skullcap, chaste berries, passionflower, ginger root, marshmallow root, crampbark, and spearmint leaves. This tea can also be made with Ceylon tea if you want something a little less sweet.

In each re-sealable bag you will receive 15 ready-to-use tea bags. Each bag holds approximately 1 tsp of tea. One bag can make a very large mug of strong and delectable tea and two bags can make a nice small pot of tea. This can be made as loose leaf tea as well, just convo me. When sent as a loose tea I will include an unbleached muslin bag. If needed, I can also include a tea strainer if prefered.

This tea will help ease the cramps, reduce your bloating, and help ease the tension and anger of even the worst PMS victim. Don't let another month of agony go by! Try PMS tea and you'll wonder why you waited!

Featured on Etsy's Front Page

I, like many other Etsy sellers have tried everything we can think of to get attention from buyers. I, myself, had bought into doing two separate Showcases for $7 for 1 day and got not a single sale from it. But this weekend I saw just how fabulous being featuered on the front page can be!

Yesterday morning I went online to see if I had a sale and in my inbox I saw I had 2, and they were for my herbs! This rarely happens so I excitedly went to the Etsy site to relist and as the front page of Etsy came up I saw a very familiar picture at the very top! One of my own herbs!

Etsy had decided to do a feature on items with the word Organic in them and they had chosen my Organic Gotu Kola tea aid as one of them. I immediately went to my shop and by that time I had 2 MORE sales! I had also made a sale from my Artfire account as well! I was so excited that I had to let my Earthpath Artisan team members know, and by the time I had posted something about it in the team forum and relisted the several items that had sold I had 2 MORE sales!

WOW! So I did my little "Thank you PPF" dance around the kitchen as my sweety made brownies from scratch for a barbeque and I screeched like I hadn't screeched since I was about 12.

Etsy can feature me any time they want to! I just wish I had known they would earlier because I have now run out of my tea-bags that I use and no one in my area, or even within a 20 miles radius carries them so I've special ordered them for immediate shipping. I may not have enough to finish all the sales I made this weekend but I should have the new order by Wednesday or Thursday and then off they go!

Wedding Plans and MOBs

My mother is FINALLY getting excited about the wedding, thank goodness! I've been going what feels like boxing rounds with her and she has been second-guessing everything, right down to our color scheme. Then she came at me crying with the feeling that she isn't involved in the wedding at all and I'm her only child, etc.

I'll be honest, as much as I love my mother, and I LOVE my mother, I was getting...frustrated. Then I realized that my partner and I had been planning this whole thing together, looking at pictures, going back and forth on how things would look, etc., and my mother hadn't even seen anything yet and was going on her own imagination.

So I took a couple hours the other day and put together a little visual presentation using the pictures we liked, colors, ideas, actual products we were going to get, etc. She called me after looking at it and I could hear the excitement in her voice. She had some good points and some good ideas, and it was so nice!

10 Fabulous Things Under $20 on Etsy!!!

There is so much to love on Etsy I just don't know where to begin. The art, the sculpture, the geek-accessories...and some are quite the investment. Not these incredible pieces! All 10 under $20 each! Not a bad deal, not bad at all, and at those prices they may not hang around long. This edition of my favorite things is all about my fellow EarthPath Etsian team members (aka EAST Team).

Figments is a big chatter and a great friend to all the EAST team members, I think it is safe to say. She's also a talented jewelry designer, as you can see by these "Swirling Colors" earrings.

Silver colored Tierra Cast pewter spiral goddess charms hangling below the colors of the Chakras, one is inspired to get balanced and connected with oneself. Lovely and inspiring at only $15.

If there isn't a saying "good ACEOs are hard to find" yet then there should be. And this would be among them! Cobaltquilter has an amazing assortment of beautiful quilts, postcards, art clothes, that you could spend hours browsing through her shop.

This ACEO Gypsy Rose Moon Goddess is gorgeous, and only $10! Handmade and one of only 12 in a series, it's worth gobbling up quickly!

If you are ever looking to spend some time in a world with faeries and magic, you may find yourself browsing Merigreeleaf's shop. She sells everything from knitted plushies to necklaces to runes, to chainmale.

The Underwater Wyvern: Slightly Sylphs is a great represenation of this. Crocheted out of hemp with beads and charms of various shades of blue, and two lovely pewter faeries, it's amazing that it is only $18!

I get tired of throwing on the typical studs and dangles that adorn my ears from time to time, and CelticCrossings Ear Swirls are just the thing to break up the monotony!

This lovely Ear Swirl in Sterling Silver with Swarovski Crystals is only $12.50! It swirls up your ear and is over an inch in length. Its a sparkly piece of bling that you have to add to your collection!

Want to create your own talisman? Want prosperity or protection, love or courage? Well, you will find this lovely offering at Greenfingers, along with dozens of other lovely charms, readings, smudge sticks, you name it!

Each charm is different, and each talisman is a charm, hehe, and for $20 it's well worth it! Each Custom Charm/talisman/amulet will be unique and handmade with whichever items you want from her list. It's worth investigating.

Plushies and ACEOs like in a Geek's heaven! Oh, I'm speaking of Lizstaley's shop of course. Whether it's a One-Eyed Purple People Eater or a Dr. Who plushie keychain, this girl's store is one of a kind!

This little green beauty is the ever-popular PayPal Faery! That's right! Even is the monetary PPF doesn't visit your store as often as you'd like her to, this one can visit with you all you like, and for $18 she certainly is a bargain!

Nothing says summer like a Backyard Barbeque, and nothing says barbeque like HowlingCaterpillars' 5-inch diameter Dream Web. From the tip of isn't longest feather to the top of it's hanging loop, this original piece is 17 inches long and only $15!

How much summer can you spot? Watermelons, baseball, rootbeer! Mmmm, I can almost smell the suntan lotion.

TiedUpAndTwisted is not only a lovely individual but a very talented jewelry crafter!

Tied's "You Are The Sea" sea green rutilated quartz and oxidized silver earrings are stunners, don't you think? Summery, sweet, simple...they could be worn with jeans, with dresses, and everything in between. So pretty, and only $18!

Not to be outdone by Tied's success, her other fabulous shop, Charmedbyskye, has some additionally lovely pieces. "Northern Lights", a vintage reconstructed earring set is lovely, funky, and I love the pictures! At $20 they are a fun, vintage addition to your collection!

I've been featured in a Treasury!

MollyMaddie recently featured my Knock Out Punch tea on her tea-related treasury! I am in very good company, those items she listed are gorgeous!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=69004

New Tea Unveiled! Migraine and Headaches Beware!

My dear friend Wendy has been struggling with migraines ever since I met her. I felt so bad that I offered to make her a tea if she was willing to be my guinea pig, and she bravely took me up on my offer.

After researching the best possible herbs for relieving headaches and migraines, researching a little about the perceived causes of migraines, I created my newest herbal tea which I lovingly call The Noggin Number. That's Number as in "it numbs your head" not "the number seven".

Take a look!

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=27275268

Oh, and anyone else willing to be a guinea pig, please feel free to let me know. Tell me what ails you, I'll create a tea for it, send you 6 sample tea bags, as long as you promise to give me honest and detailed feeback on how it works, tastes, etc, and agree to post a little blurb about it with a link to my Etsy page in your own blog or Facebook, or whatever. I want to start putting up quotes of happy customers :) I might not be able to get to everyone but I will try. I'll scratch your Tea-drinking back if you scratch mine :)

June's CandleLighters Donation

Thank you all for your wonderful and kind patronage. This past month I was able to donate an additional $9.50 to CandleLighters organization which is being earmarked for financial support for families struggling to pay for their children's cancer treatments.

So far this makes a whopping $23.50! I couldn't do it without all of you! In the future I am looking into making it possible for you to donate directly to them through my blog as well.

Love you all!