a handmade holiday

i worked for weeks and weeks on having a handmade holiday. the link is a couple of things i made for the kidlets, the book of spells is for my kidlet for his birthday. ftr he loved it! i also gave him a rune stone set (handmade) and several other things. this was an incredible way to gift loved ones with something special. instead of spending money i dont actually have or having to save up for months to spend it all at the holiday (i dont use nor do i have credit cards) i saved up time and creativity. felt quite good too.

i have several toher things i need to take pictures of but just havent gotten around to it. i made conditioning and coloring hair oil, bath salts, bath oil, lower back rice packs, loverly cloth crowns with button jewels, recycled wool slippers, recycled wool arm warmers, and a couple of other things.

if you care about handmade products, family business, kids and the ability of the economy to improve

go here, vote for this. i am not a eloquent writer and will not pain you with pages of reasons you should do this. i will say today is a special birthday and i am taking time away from that to post this. because i want to be able to make a living, i want the mostly women, i know to continue to financially support their families i voted for this http://www.change.org/ideas/view/save_handmade_toys_from_the_cpsia

and this: http://www.handmadetoyalliance.org/it-s-not-just-toys

thanks so much!

these are just a couple of items available from mayamade.etsy.com

MayaMade products
Originally uploaded by mayamade

on the left side of the photo is knight ian's dream herbs. knight ian was given the recipe for these sleeping herbs after he thoughtfully helped a young dragon from an evil wizard. it was an epic adventure. if you order these herbs you childs' name will be used to tell this tale. this wonderful story is written to be gender neutral. using either a fairy princess, forest friend, or a knight, your choice, as the star. printed on fine paper and suitable for framing.
thanks for looking, maya.

the first entry in this blog is something i stole borrowed from frog

75 books i have (or in my case haven't) read, a couple on the original list i removed and replaced with other books i love. one by emma goldman, who was truly an individual. some of these books i wont ever read. some i have read a 100 times.

* The Lottery (and Other Stories), Shirley Jackson

* To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf

* The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton

* White Teeth, Zadie Smith

* The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende

* Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion

* Excellent Women, Barbara Pym

* The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

* Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys

* The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

* Beloved, Toni Morrison

* Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert

* Like Life, Lorrie Moore

* Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

* Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

* our bodies, ourselves, the boston women's collective

* A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley

* A Good Man Is Hard To Find (and Other Stories), Flannery O'Connor

* The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx

* You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down, Alice Walker

* Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston

* To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

* Fear of Flying, Erica Jong

* Earthly Paradise, Colette

* Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt

* Property, Valerie Martin

* Middlemarch, George Eliot

* Annie John, Jamaica Kincaid

* The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir

* Runaway, Alice Munro

* The Heart is A Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers

* The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston

* Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

* You Must Remember This, Joyce Carol Oates

* Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

* Bad Behavior, Mary Gaitskill

* The Liars' Club, Mary Karr

* I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou

* A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Betty Smith

* And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie

* Bastard out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison

* The Secret History, Donna Tartt

* The Little Disturbances of Man, Grace Paley

* The Portable Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Parker

* The Group, Mary McCarthy

* Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi

* The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing

* The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank

* Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

* Against Interpretation, Susan Sontag

* In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez

* The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck

* Fun Home, Alison Bechdel

* Three Junes, Julia Glass

* A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft

* Sophie's Choice, William Styron

* Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann

* Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford

* living my life, emma goldman

* The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin

* The Red Tent, Anita Diamant

* The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

* The Face of War, Martha Gellhorn

* My Antonia, Willa Cather

* Love In The Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

* The Harsh Voice, Rebecca West

* Spending, Mary Gordon

* The Lover, Marguerite Duras

* The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy

* Tell Me a Riddle, Tillie Olsen

* Nightwood, Djuna Barnes

* Three Lives, Gertrude Stein

* Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons

* I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith

* Possession, A.S. Byatt

for the record i do actually read a lot. just not those tomes (no, i didn't just learn that word either) i read books about psychology, anatomy, physiology, aromatherapy, herbalism, arts and crafts, and for a little fun very good mysteries. now i am re-reading the lord of the rings six pack. its going well actually. oh and occasionally i read books on the care and feeding of children, guinea pigs, family, friends and dogs.