The indoor closet garden is exploding, with a deep heady fragrance, that smells like a hot-house, coming from the very center of our home. It’s filled with all sort’s of yummy edible vegetables. From the sweet pea’s climbing up the ropes that I hung from the hanging rails that the builders put in, I don’t think when they were designing a hanging closet they ever imagined sweet pea’s growing from them, to the budding tomato’s that are now starting to get the very first of their fruit, basil, and peppers.

Each week I get 5 maybe 10 big pea pods off of the pea plant not a ton, but it’s just getting into its big production period and it’s nice for topping on salads. Plus the wonderful smell of the flower blossoms is a great treat. Next time I think I will pick a variety with a larger crop, even if it takes longer to get to its harvest period. These sweet pea’s had a really quick time to harvest.

The other tip I would recommend is to always keep your lights LED 3-5 inches above your plants. While the plants will still survive with them even a few feet above your plants, they wont have the super growth you’ll see with the plants nice and close to the lights. It’s hard to manage keeping everything this close when you have plants which are big like the tomatoes and peas, and small, like some of my pots of basil, so I have been trying to stack pots together and pot things doubled up.

The weird thing about our garden is that the only light coming from the room is a deep dark fuchsia. It seems alien, or like something you would imagine seeing in the far reaches of space, or on a Sci Fi show. I love it. I think the coolest part of the LED UFO lights that I use, is how they confuse your eyes, while you’re in the room everything is so pink, the leaves are black, blue, or white if they have died back, but once you leave the room everything white turns a strange yellowy green. It’s trippy, until you get used to it.

I’d like to keep expanding our indoor garden, in the next few weeks we’ll be adding some Genovese basil, as well as some cutting flowers. I can’t wait to see how these Tigerella tomatoes develop!

Image Credit The Pastry Affair

I haven’t been baking as much as usual lately. I’ve just been to busy designing my new jewelry line of forest based jewelry, and filling orders. Until the other day when I found myself craving my favorite tweaked recipe of all time, I take the Nestle Toll House Classic Chocolate Chip Cookie, which tends to be a bit to oily and thin, and I turn it into my Double Chocolate Cookie with White Chocolate Chips. My version is a thicker, cakier cookie, with an extra splash of salt to bring our the chocolate flavor.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cups coco powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground seasalt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup white chocolate chips

PREHEAT oven to 375° F.

COMBINE flour, baking soda, coco powder and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chips. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto baking sheets covered in parchment paper. I like to save the sea salt to sprinkle on top of the cookies right before they go into the oven.

BAKE on center rack for 9 to 11 minutes. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Just like so many gardeners, I dread the winter, when everything dies back and there is just nothing to do. It is just so boring! Living in the south our winter is pretty short but, we’re still lacking the fresh produce that I crave all year round, this year I decided to start my first indoor farming experience. A few months age I started growing two types of peas, purple basil, tomatoes, and an extra licoricy green basil, growing inside a windowless closet and they have been coming in amazingly ever since.

For me the big question was lighting, I have central pain syndrome and the normal  grow lights that are used in doors, sets CPS’s alydonia skin pain flaring like crazy, so I needed lights with a really low frequency, but heavy output for the plants. Plus the regular lights are a major fire hazard, I don’t want my house going up in flames because I need my pesto once a week. I finally decided on these really cool LED lights. They look hot pink to the human eye and are made up of the exact wavelengths of light that the plants need to grow, the lights look dim since they are only producing the spectrums needed for the plants to grow in.

So have fun looking at pictures of my garden, I’m amazed how much I have produced in a 4ft square space. Especially when I can’t seem to keep the dogs and cats out of there.

 

But late last night, I noticed that my traffic had just absolutely exploded, and I had no idea where it was coming from. I looked through google analytics, and saw a mysterious annotation, called bronto. Well what is bronto, and why is my traffic coming from google bronto. What in the world is that I asked myself.

Well after doing some digging I found out that bronto is the service that Etsy uses to send out there Etsy Finds e-mails.  But alas, I had deleted all of my emails for the day, and there is no archive for Etsy Finds. I continued my search looking through my email trash can. Until there it was, the Etsy Find, Tell your Friend Veronica… It’s Time to Celebrate Hanukkah! And it had in it under the gifts for men, my beautiful, Song of Solomon Dog Tag Necklace.  Woo Hoo!!!

I like to make my own holiday ornaments every year. It adds a special touch to the holiday season, and each year as you add them to the tree, those handmade ornaments just have so much more meaning then the store-bought ones. This year our ornaments theme was Swiss Gingerbread Bird Houses. As always I tried to be as eco-friendly as possible, using felt made from recycled plastic bottles!

So let’s get started with this how to:

First using graph paper, carefully sketch out your bird house. You will need to make two copies of the house so make sure the lines are nice and dark. That way you can easily see them through the paper.

Then cut out your second copy. You will use the second copy to cut out the back of the ornament.

Carefully pin your paper form to the felt, and cut around the edges. Cutting the shape out exactly.

Then cut the front form into the sections for the roof and the body of the house since these will be different colors. Pin the paper to the tan fabric and carefully cut the fabric out.

Next, create the holes for the birds to pop in and out of their houses, fold the fabric in half, and cut the two circles out of the tan fabric, exposing the black back fabric through the holes.

Using a hot glue gun, glue the hanging ribbon into place onto the black felt.

 

Now comes the fun part the glitter!

I used Martha Stewart glitters in colors that were very similar to the felt colors. That way they just added richness and depth to the color of the felt.

Next came the snow writer, which kills your hands but looks amazing. You have to squeeze really hard to get this puff paint out, but the effect really is what finishes off the ornament, without it doesn’t look like winter at all.

Then make sure to carefully sprinkle the snow with crystal white glitter.

Leave the ornament overnight to dry and you have another ornament for your little Swiss village!

It may be winter, but it doesn’t feel like it here in South Carolina. With the temperatures fluctuating between the 30′s and the 70′s it’s been quite a warm winter so far. It makes shopping for holiday’s even harder, when all I want to do is work in my garden. I really can’t stop digging and planting out there. So this holiday season’s shopping picks are for the gardener in your life. The person who can’t stop digging at the soil, even when theres inches of snow covering it. Who looks through seed catalogs with that dreamy look in their eye, imagining their garden in summer.

These amazing treasuries are cold and crisp and definitely ready for a sparkling holiday season! Take your time and look through them for a wonderful holiday treat!!!

The Two of Us

Curated By: Romy and Clare

Featuring The Work Of: PhotographyDream, cristinasroom, PoleStar, aliherrmann, lapisbeach, ileaiye, TheSlyFox, ThreeTreesBindery, FableAndFury, papercutsbyjoe, FusionSweets, emililies, KandiceInWonderland, atlasandforest, MissCrowland, MoonHalo

Lifelines

Curated By: Quirks and Crafts

Featuring The Work Of: wishdaisy, 3GIRLSandaGOAT, Kidivist, ValeriaFast, besty, stonesartisanjewelry, idea2lifestyle, SPARKLEFARM, papercutsbyjoe, RlynnPhotography, knifeinthewater, beethings, WhimsicalMinimalist, SarahBirtJewellery, Weaselfactory, sakao

And ThenCurated By: Nouveau Tique

Featuring The Work Of: AppleWhite, TheHauntedHollowTree, tokyocraftstudios, Relogyyy, Baymut, theloveshop, BigBadWolfDesign, huiyitan, SkyeArt, simplevintage, CyberMoon, susantique, YellowBugBoutique, imali, iiiheart, OneDecember

 

The black wolf spirit will protect you in the dark forest.

Curated By: Ooooh Shiny

Featuring The Work Of: EyePoetryPhotography, RoyalMint, ARTISANIEeurope, SewnNatural, GlitzGlitter, CreatedByStorm, frighten,  itsastitch,amberalexander, DollfaceDeVille, Maari, mattleavitt, ThisYearsGirl, wolfartglass, redtilestudio, iluxo

Grey Winter Day

Curated By: AmandaRaeK

Featuring The Work Of: WoodenNickelsJewelry, FlourishCafe, handmadetherapy, SevenWhiteRabbits, cherryandviolet, ThongbaiTatong, ylleanna, ara133photography, LoveandKnit, ktsphotos, GollyBard, CreaShines, thePaintedSky, persephonevintage, ottoknits, awkward

Today I got to harvest the first florets from our broccoli plants. They’ve been growing since late August, maybe early September. And they have gotten to be absolutely humongous. I’ve never grown broccoli before, but I didn’t do anything special, except to put them into my favorite Lucky Frog soil. I bought Early Dividend starters at our local organic plants store and I’ve been so happy with these beautiful plants. One of the best things about them is that after the main head is harvested big side flowers will form. Keeping you in broccoli for weeks and weeks. I took some pictures of the raised bed so you can see how big they’ve gotten, next to them I’ve planted garlic, which will be covered with a thick layer of hay by the end of the weekend to protect the bulbs from frost.

I was so excited to harvest my carrots last week. They’ve been growing in our raised garden bed since August,  the tops of the carrots measured more then 2.5 inches across. So I figured they would be huge. I was picturing them at least 10 inches long. So I gripped the super long greens, and pulled with all my might, and almost fell on my but. Out popped beautiful carrots that maxed out at 5 inches long! I felt sooo ridiculous! But once I baked and roasted them, oh my goodness. The flavor was increadable so intensely sweet, and more carrot flavor then I have ever tasted. I can’t wait to try again next year. And the greens made a beautiful arrangement for Thanksgiving.

In keeping with the spirit of giving this holiday season, One Loom Studio will donate 10% of every purchase made between November 28 and December 20 to Unicef in an effort to end the famine in Somalia. In addition, you will receive a special card thanking you for your donation.

Happy Holidays from One Loom Studio.