Savory Spice Shop (Picture and Text Heavy)

Last week this little thing followed me home and proceeded to live in my bathroom for two days until we found him a new home.

One of my friends over in St. Petersburg took him.  So, naturally, after my boyfriend and I dropped kitten off to his new home we had to stop and look at the little shops by the marina.  And that's how we came across this boutique called Savory Spice Shop.

It. Blew. Our. Minds.

The entire store is just walls and walls of spices.  Spices you've never even heard of.  They had big barrels just filled with cinnamon sticks and more varieties of salt than I even knew existed.  They also had all kinds of cocoa and sugar. 

You could buy your own small jar of spices, or you could fill these cute little muslin bags with different amounts of spice.  It definitely gave me some great ideas for  homemade Christmas gifts that I'm sure I'll share with you later this year!

 Each different kind of spice had suggestions on the label for how to use it.  They also had gift sets of various spices that they've paired for specific purposes.  Since it was just before Father's Day, I found the perfect gift set of coffee spices to give to my dad.  (He's replaced alcohol with coffee since he quit drinking.  Lol.)

What's cute about the gift sets, too, is that they separate each spice with Bay leaves and cinnamon sticks that can actually be used.  They also garnished the gift set with whole nutmeg, chili pepper and [insert something fancy that I forgot what it's called here] that can be used, too.

I wrapped it up and mailed it to him.  I also sent off a handmade card, but it was so ugly I couldn't bring myself to share it with you!  (P.S. The reason I'm just now sharing this post is because I didn't want to give away the secret before my dad opened his gift!)

Boy, was this a bugger to wrap!

And of course we had to get something for ourselves.  I picked out a chai mix.  They pre-selected all the different ingredients for you and put them in a bag with a recipe for you to follow.  Mmmm.

And Tyler, who loves baking chocolate chip cookies with lots of cinnamon, got this Ceylon "True" Cinnamon.  Did you know the usual store bought cinnamon isn't actually real cinnamon?  It actually comes from the cassia tree.  We bought this real cinnamon and haven't had a chance to use it yet, but it smells different (and more delicious!) than the kind of cinnamon we usually buy.

I was in heaven, and when I went home my fingertips smelled like spices.  My boyfriend and I rambled about how great the store was for about 15 miles on the interstate on our way back home.  I can't wait to visit again!

Hope you've been crafting up a storm while I've been off rescuing kittens and galvanizing in spice shops!

--CC


Note:  This post was not commissioned or prompted by Savory Spice Shop.  I actually loved it that much! :)

May Day Flowers

I don't know if any of you celebrate May Day at all.  It's not a very mainstream holiday.  But for me, May 1st was always a special day.

Every year on May Day when I was a little girl my mom surprised me with a little bouquet of flowers hanging on my bedroom door after school.  When I graduated and went to college far away, she started having a florist deliver flowers to me on May 1st.

This year, I decided to share the merriment by leaving some flowers on my friend Alejandra's front door as a surprise.  I got the idea well in advance, so I had time to craft a hanging vase about a week ago.  All I used was a spaghetti sauce jar I'd saved and larger gauge jewelry wire.  I wrapped the wire around the neck of the jar and then made a tall arch above the jar so that it could hang on the door.  Then, I fashioned a tag out of some leftover jute from my St. Patrick's Day project, some corrugated cardboard and scrapbook paper to make a tag.

With my hanging vase ready, on May Day all I had to do was fill it with flowers and leave it on my surprisee's door.  I picked up a couple of small bunches of flowers from Publix and threw together an inexpensive, springy bouquet.

I chose pink and white Gerber Daisies with a leafy green spray, but my boyfriend had the idea to add just one yellow daisy (from the May Day bouquet he bought me!) for personality.  It turned out really cute and cheery! 

Then I sneakily and quietly left the flowers on Alejandra's door for her to find and snapped a few pictures while I was at it.

 

 

 

She told me this evening that she found the flowers and, basically, was thrilled.  It made me feel happy to have put a little joy in someone's day.

I hope all of you had happy May Days, too.  Until next time, happy crafting!

Heat Therapy Pillows for Friends

 At Christmas time I made rice pillows as gifts for two of my friends.  (I never posted it because I was going to make a tutorial but haven't gotten around to it yet...)

















My mom used to make them and sell them at craft fairs when I was growing up.  She used flax seed instead of rice.  I'll admit, flax feels a little nicer but rice is so much cheaper!

















You can keep the rice pillows in the freezer and use them as an ice pack on injuries, etc. or you can put them in the microwave for a few minutes and use them as a heating pad.

On Friday I was in class with one of the friends for whom I made the rice pillow at Christmas.  She said it was great for cramps and that her roommate had been using it, too.  So I offered to make one for her roommate and got two more requests from other girls in the class!  Soo... 

I sewed three rice therapy pillows this weekend!

You might recognize the elephant fabric and the purple fabric from my last couple of posts.  This is a great project to use up scraps since it doesn't take very much material.





















I made the pillow itself with muslin, filled it with rice, and then made a removable pillow cover.  This is makes it washable, since it's likely you'll be using it when you're sick.

It was fun and incredibly easy to make these and it made me feel good that people actually asked me to sew things for them!  A little ego booster for me.  :)

Hope everyone in the sewing blogosphere is doing well and ready to celebrate Valentine's Day tomorrow.  See you next time.