Feeling Creative

Firstly, I have to show off my beautiful new Leaf business card holder and Leaf soap dish that I found on Etsy from Pinoak Pottery. Wonderful stuff! Look how cute my cards are in there! Be sure to check out her other wares ;)

I've been in a very creative kind of mood and have been playing around with making beads and jewelry from herbs. Yes herbs. First of all let me tell you I am on an amber kick and nothing smells better to me than a good amber blend. So with that in my head, my first thoughts were to just hot pierce some amber resin chunks and frankincense tears and make a necklace. Well, if you know me, you know there's nothing I enjoy more than reading and researching stuff, so, one thing led to another and before you know it I was experimenting with all kinds of herbal materials. Dug out an old book that I remembered seeing something about rose beads in. They had an excellent article on how to make rose petal beads (it's actually more like rose mush at first). Then I thought to myself, Self, you can do this with petals, and any other herbs that smell good if they're powdered first. I played a bit more last night and went to bed with visions of all the cool new but still imaginary creations dancing around in my head. Woke up still feeling that ol' creative buzz and today is going to be official "Herb Bead Making Day" chez moi. If anybody else makes these I'd appreciate any input. Most of the older tutorials say use flour but I'm using a blend of flour and cornstarch...once they've dried they'll be buffed with a fine nail buffer to polish and then rubbed in a little bit of EO to match.

Anything else I should try or is it really that simple? I did manage to find Katie, an Etsy artisan(of course where else) creating gorgeous herb bead jewelry for inspiration - give her a look at Black Star's Shop. When I grow up I want to make beads like hers. Please email me or comment here and don't be afraid to pipe up and leave your two cents!