Yet again, it's been a while since I've updated here! Perhaps I hit a crafting slowdown since the weather has been so nice? We've been so busy with the garden, I think I have a good excuse! Though late Spring has brought with it several new ideas for fun projects! Our ornamental cherry trees in the front are blooming like it's nobodies business, and their fragrance is AMAZING! (Actually we're not sure what kind of trees they are, they are some sort of ornamental (inedible) cherry, or perhaps some kind of Japanese plum. The birds don't eat the fruit, so I'm assuming they are poisonous.) I've been wanting to bottle their scent for some time now, and it seems like I just might be able to! I've done some research into perfume making, and it seems easy enough, if I have enough time left in their blooming season! To make perfume or essential oil, you need to have a continuous supply of fresh petals for at least a week, if not two, and I might have missed that window of opportunity this year (if so, next year I'll be prepared!)(and maybe I'll still try it this year with our oriental lilies!). Despite that, I plan on picking up some supplies today to try my hand at it! I'll be using techniques described in Back To Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, which is really the seminal book of homesteading self-sufficiency in my opinion. It is full not only of great crafts and recipes and DIY projects, but also has all sorts of info on all matters homesteading- building, farming, raising livestock, really you name it, it probably has it. It's new Third edition is great, I really do recommend it!
Anyways, back to the perfume making- I'm not sure whether I'll try making perfume, or essential oil. To make perfume, you need a fair amount of lard (or crisco), melted onto 10 or so shallow plates. Then you score a crisscross pattern in the solidified lard, and put the petals inbetween two sandwiched plates, and seal them with tape. Every day or two, open up the plates, replace the wilted petals with fresh, and repete about 8 times. Then, discard the petals, put the lard in glass jars, and fill with ethyl alcohol, seal and store in a cool dark place for 6-8 months (!), shaking each jar once every day (!!!)... After 6-8 months, you strain out the fat and add a fixative oil (such as musk or ambergris, or sandalwood oil). Fairly involved process, no? Essential oil is much faster and less involved to make. You put petals in a jar filled with an odorless oil, replacing the petals with fresh ones every day or two, repeting about 8 times. Still as involved as the beginning of making perfume, but thankfully you stop there! I'm not sure which one I'll try (or if I'll try both). I'm also not sure what oil to use for essential oil, what oil there is that is odorless and safe for the skin... We shall see!
I suppose I haven't been entirely projectless lately. I did sew Wyatt's curtains for his room (finally! I've had the valance since before he was born!) not too long ago, though I think that's about it! (he's still snoozing now, or I'd go take a picture! I'll post one soon!) I think fall and winter are naturally more crafty times of year for me, with the weather keeping you indoors and the prospect of the holiday season approaching! Though late summer is typically the time I'm most busy with food-related crafts, namingly canning and preserving! Our sour cherry trees are just beginning to lose their petals, and it's almost time to cover them with bird netting! They're all looking very healthy, so if we manage to keep them well enough protected from being pecked clean, we should have a very delishous harvest in about a month and a half! Also, our recent bout of very rainy weather has forced Red to work on his shop rather than in the garden, which is good news for me, cause once his shop is done he can move his tools out of my soon-to-be craft shed! Yay! He is very nearly done, and I think the only big thing left to do is to have a trench dug to bring power to it from the pedistal, and then have LPEA (our electric supplier) come out and install an RV pedistal! (and we have a friend who has agreed to bring a backhoe over to do the digging!) Hooray! So hopefully soon I'll be able to begin work on making the shed my craft shed! Can't wait! :D
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