a gift

you're maybe thinking that you've seen this incredible box of magic before? i know i have, right here. i just had no idea that i was the lucky friend to receive it. the leaf pattern is made by - well, leaves, plant dyed. this is a repurposed, reused, thrifted, ecologically sane and skillfully decorated treasure box. i so adore it. thank you, mona!

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mona is a clever and innovative plant dyer and a maker of many things. you can see some of her work here, here and here.  

nightmare + book = dress

she woke up before dawn, crying; a nightmare. dead tired, i grabbed a blanket and a random book from the shelf and tucked her in close to me. an hour later, she'd looked at each and every one of the pictures in the book, and 'decided on this one'.

ooops! i'd handed her mark ryden's 'the tree show'. some of the images in there are quite disturbing for little people. but she never mentioned any of that, only The Dress.
alright. i didn't have a pattern or an even remotely similar fabric, but that didn't get me off the hook. she dug into my fabric stash and found one of her old sweatshirts, size 6 (repurpose, you know!) 'so there's no problem, mummy!'

she decided on another fabric that she liked, and i spent the entire day trying to stitch the two pieces together without loosing it. my conclusion is, that as with knitting, a pattern is required. if no pattern, then at least a plan.

i managed to make it appear like a dress, all in one piece, at least (or, should i say, so far). and she's happy. and i want a pattern for a real 50's dress.

(yes, i did ask her if she wanted me to do something about those, but she opted for the spaceship look)

so there it is. inspiration moves in mysterious ways.

achievements

i met the multi talented helene in gudvangen, and she taught me how to make holes for thumbs in my needlebound wristwarmers (make sure to check out helenes incredibly beautiful printed sheepskins here). so now i can finally make those long (and sometimes quite ladylike looking) warmers. these are made with yarn dyed with cochineal, a small louse originally from mexico. that's right; this kind of dried up lice makes red and purple colours!

i didn't get one single good shot of our stall at the market, but i just have to show you my bottles of elderflower syrup - homemade label and all, but i thought it looked quite pro!

kindness

when my grandmother died a couple of years ago, i chose some of her old breakfast plates to keep. i like retro plates, and i used them a lot. but this particular plate broke (a triangular piece down to the left, see it?) i tried to glue it, but it broke off again. still, i wouldn't throw it away. then i remembered having seen this norwegian blog and webshop of a woman who makes jewellery out of broken ceramics. it was perfect; someone else could use it and i didn't have to throw it out. i contacted her and sent the plate off in the mail (and i didn't even have to worry about it breaking during transport, ha).

this was a couple of months ago. yesterday, a small package was in my mailbox.

she had made a pendant for me out of the plate, as a thank you gift. isn't that wonderful?? imagine; an old, broken plate. from my grandmother's kitchen.

thank you, mimmi!

elderflower lemonade/syrup

care to join me for a glass of homemade elderflower lemonade? you will need an elder tree (sambucus nigra/black elder) in bloom for this (dancing mermaid in front is optional). if you don't have one, nick some off your neighbours tree. or go hunting.
this is incredible easy to make, it practically makes itself. if it looks complicated, it's only because i tend to blabber.

EDITED TO ADD: i just found out that lemonade is not commonly diluted with water, so just to make clear; this is syrup to be diluted!!

40 - 60 clusters of elderflower blossoms
3 organic lemons
2 liters of water
2 kg sugar
20-25 grams of citric acid (optional, depending on storage - see below)

- pick your blossoms in dry weather, and preferably when newly blooming. the tree continues to bring forth fresh blossoms for about a month, so there's plenty of opportunities for making another batch later if you like. - don't rinse the blossoms in water, but gently shake them to drop any bugs. the rest is strained out later on. - place the blossoms in a laaaarge pot/bowl.

three clusters in different stages of blooming
cut them just about so - cut the lemons in slim slices. keep the rind/skin on, that's why you'd want organic ones (if you can't find organic lemons, you can leave your non organic ones in a bowl of water and add 3-4 tablespoons of baking soda. this will rinse off most of the pesticides). - add the lemons and the sugar to the water and bring to a boil. - dissolve the citric acid in the mix and pour it all boiling hot over the blossoms. - leave to cool, then place in the fridge with a lid/cloth/big plate or so on top. leave it in the fridge for 3 days, stirring the mix once or twice a day.

- strain the mix through a loosely woven (and clean!) cloth. - put it on clean, cold bottles/jars/what have you, and store in a cool place.

you can put the syrup in the freezer to make it last longer. if you know it won't be stored for long, you can leave out the citric acid. on the opposite, you can rinse the bottles with atamon water (a preservative based on benzoic acid) before you fill them with the syrup, to make them last longer.

to drink - and this is essential: mix about 1 part syrup and 8 parts water in a glass. of course, this will depend on your preferences. if you like it sweet, use more syrup and less water. this can just as easily be made into tea, by adding hot instead of cold water.

enjoy!

EDITED TO ADD: well whaddayaknow, i learned something new from this post. i found out that most people outside of (northern?) europe don't drink saft (norwegian term). i thought 'lemonade/limonade' was the common name for saft, but of course it's not. when i looked up 'elder' at wikipedia, i found this: "The French and Central Europeans (Austrians, Croatians), but particularly the Swiss (the foremost experts of Sambucus cultivation and culinary applications) are known for their elderflower syrup, most commonly made from an extract of elderflower blossoms, which can be added into pancake (Palatschinken) mix instead of blueberries. Most Balkan countries (Serbia, Romania, Macedonia) will use a similar method to make a syrup which is diluted with water and used as a drink."

the 'syrup diluted with water' is what we call saft (which actually means 'juice', but is not to be mistaken for juice as in orange, grape or cranberry juice), and is probably the most common drink among kids here. it's usually made of berries and fruit, which requires a somewhat different procedure than the one described here.

oh, and of course - the photos in this post are completely unnecessary. but what fun would that be?

easy as soap

i'll try not to swear.
but really....
i had it all set up for a good soap making time. i had spent weeks gathering the right ingredients, the right amount of courage, and reading and rereading the instructions from several different sources, in english and norwegian, just to be sure to get it right.
and everything went well, until i took the soap out of the mold and started cutting it into blocks.... it crumbled. not into, well, crumbles, but into layers of soap, making the oddest shaped blocks. this won't be of use to anyone, i'm afraid. damn! (ha! i did it again!)
if anyone has any experience with this, please let me know what i might have done wrong!

i meant to buy her an apple tree for her garden...

...as it was her birthday.

instead, i made her linen napkins from the remains of an old sofa cover, printed with some of my hand carved rubber stamps.

a moleskine garden diary, also printed with stamps.

a stamped card;

paper apples.

for now.

mission: impossible

i remember using a bathroom at a radical youth's community house in oslo back in the late 80's. i was there to participate in a large demonstration facilitated by the community. the walls of that bathroom had writings all over; basically, a never ending list of what corporation/country/brand/organisation/political party etc etc to boycott. i remember thinking; how silly. no matter if you boycott all of these, there will still be hundreds (thousands!) of unethical corporations etc out there, that you don't even know you're supporting.
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whether we see ourselves as saving the earth, saving humanity (the same thing from two different angles), or just living an interconnected and meaningful life, i do believe that the obstacles in our culture are too many for most of us to be able to live out our ideals 100%. whether we choose to do a little here and a little there, or pick a couple of subjects that we dedicate ourselves fully to, most of us will never be able to live completely sustainably or ethically. i believe in doing our best, but i also believe in not preaching. the (so far) self imposed tasks and responsability before us might seem overwhelming. i've been practicing 'a little bit here and there' until recently, when i decided to be more systematic about it. but i started out with one subject that i dedicated myself fullheartedly to: food.

as a true child of the 80's neo hippie/post punk/goth/general freak sub culture of my town, my interest in counter-culturalism had been spurted from an early age and i, along with most of my friends, became a vegetarian. a lot of unguided experimenting, including over eating on daal (i'll never eat yellow lentils again) proceeded. i had a go on macrobiotics (but never could stand the umeboshi, nor the seaweed, and what's left then? :)), and finally got some good cooking lessons living in a yoga ashram in copenhagen. i was a vegetarian for 7 years.

when i got pregnant, i already had decided to go with my food urges if it included meat. it did. chicken, big time. i reevaluated my reasons for being a vegetarian, and i understood that the whole thing had come about as a product of two things: the subculture that formed my teens and early 20's, and my mother's bad cooking. my experience with meat was that it was a highly yucky, unchewable substance that kept growing in my mouth. my reencounter with meat was chicken only, until i met my future mother in law (a former cook) and tasted her food. (i still prefer chicken, though).

i am aware of the grain vs meat debate, and that, along with health matters, is why i think we should only eat meat (not including fish here) about twice a week. but i don't think it's unethical to eat animals, which seemed to be the main reason for my fellow vegetarian friends to stay vegetarian.

all my arguments back and forth in this whole reevaluation made me conclude with one thing: i didn't need to eat vegetaric; i needed to eat organic. but not for health reasons, which seemed to be the main reason why people ate organic back then; it was for ethical reasons. non organic food was non sustainable. it didn't fit in with my values or my spiritual views of life, man and earth.
so, when my son was born, i initiated our town's first organic foods home delivery service, and stayed an organic chica for years. even though in recent years my economy as well as my energy level has started to go in unpredictable directions, i've tried to stay true to my ideal - sometimes more, sometimes less, but never 100%.

but even if we are able to keep our basic diet organic, our family would never be able to do completely without non organic goods. we would never afford to build a sustainable house. we wouldn't be able to buy only organic clothes, food, furniture, detergents, or what about a bathtub? sink? textbooks? and even if we've managed without a car until 2 years ago, we wouldn't be able to do without one where we live now.

the point i'm trying to make is that even the best of the 'sustainable living' types out there aren't able to avoid non sustainable goods completely. a person can make a big fuzz about the chocolate industry; but what about the cotton they're wearing? and then one can scream and shout about the cotton industry; but what about the make up they're wearing? the hair products? the curtains, the towels, the coffe? the workplace? the music we buy? the plates that we eat from? our computers?

i'm happy that i found one green interest and let it grow from there. i'm also happy with the 'a little here and a little there' approach that i've had, and now i'm happy to pursue my green goals even further. i'm not happy when people raise their eyebrows at others not living up to their standards, mainly because a) it's really the most inefficient way to make the world a greener place, and b) you could easily point your finger back at them. it's just scribbles on a bathroom wall.

to give; to receive

how little it takes to brighten a day!

the other day, i went to pick up a world map that i ordered through my local bookstore (i had been looking for one in a particular size for months before i finally ordered one), and when there, i came upon two books on sale: the lover by marguerite duras (a classic that i never got around to read) and the unbearable lightness of being by milan kundera. kundera is a writer that made a huge impression on me when i had just passed my teens. the unbearable lightness was the first of his books that i read (some might know it better as the 1984 movie starring daniel day-lewis, juliette binoche and lena olin, a film that is beautiful in its own way that certainly made an impression on me back then, but it does by no means do the book any justice). i will give this copy to a friend.

when i got home, there were other goodies in the mail; a copy of a tolkien book that a friend sent me, as he felt i would like it a lot. i don't read much (any, to be precise) fantasy, so i'm not sure.... but i will give it a try.

there were also a package containing the soap nuts that i have been wanting to buy for a couple of years, but couldn't find a norwegian retailer until recently. with it came a small organic cotton washing bag to keep the nutshells in while washing, and a sample of organic gall soap (it's a highly efficient stain remover and comes in solid bars as well as liquid).

i've tested the nutshells twice, both on 30 degree C washing programs. the shells has a distinct, not too pleasant smell, and even though the instructions said that the clothes would be odourless, i could still smell it vaguely on the wet clothes. however, it was completely gone by the time they had dried, and they are - odourless. the second wash i put a few drops of etheric oil on the washing bag, to see how that would be. they're still on the line, drying.

so far, i'm happy with the shells, and the clothes definetely seems as clean as they do with my usual detergents (which is sonett powder).

the giving part means sending off the handrolled hankie + + to my swap-choo partner. in this digital and electronic world it feels so good and special to send and recieve something by 'old fashioned' mail. (and look, i found a use for my impulse napkin purchase at ikea, and i've also been using my hand carved stamps!).

family cloths update

curious about how we're doing with our pee cloths? or maybe it's really the last thing you'd like to hear about? *grin*
well, we're doing great. they were perfect. should i make more, i would maybe make them just a teeny bit larger. we keep ours in a plastic container just next to the toilet, and put the used ones in a small metal trash can - the pedal/lid kind. i sprinkle a little bit of baking soda in the bottom of the can, to prevent odour.
oh, and the trick to get your hubby on board? don't. make it a girl thing. that's what we do, as we only use it for pee (and my daughter is dead proud of it!). i'm not sure that washing poo-cloths on high temperatures is more enviro friendly than using paper. plus, i'm a chicken.

i've been sewing up a handkerchief for my swap-choo partner, and enjoying the sudden rushes of warmth that has come this way lately.

green: pee, poop & paper

how green are you willing to go? are you willing to substitute your highly pollutive toilet paper for washable cloth wipes? only for #1, or #2 as well?

i first read about cloth wipes here, and thought at the time it sounded like a brilliant idea. it just didn't sound right for us. for several reasons, i don't want to use them for #2 (there's a link at the bottom of this post that will answer all your questions about cloth wipes, and yes, also the hygiena questions). and the paper used for wiping pee in this house is minimal. but the thought of this wouldn't go away, and after a fortnight i'd had enough time to observe our paper habits to make up my mind, and...we use a tremendous amount of paper in the kitchen. add that up to the tp used for pee, and it's too much. kitchen paper will probably be the next challenge. but for now, i'm going with the toilet cloth wipes for #1.

a quick search through my fabric stash revealed an old piece of flanell sheet. wash, iron, cut, zig zag. couldn't be easier.

34 heavily zig zagged, pretty, purple cloths, ready to work for us :)

i cut the squares approximately 15 x 15 cm (6" x 6") - some smaller, some bigger. i have yet to find out whether that's a suitable size, and whether i've cut enough. the biggest challenge will be to prevent my girl from dropping them in the toilet after she's used them. that specific movement is a pretty established embodied habit :)

if you want to learn more about cloth wipes, head on over to these posts at crunchy chicken - the Lady of Eco Challenges (and my newest source of inspiration).

(tip: if you plan on doing this yourself, and haven't talked to your sewing machine for a while, this is the time to flatter her with some nice words and some oil. she's gonna do a lot of zig zaging for you. alternatively, you can take the time to hem them and sew with straight seems instead. the total amount of time spent on making them will probably be the same either way, and you will save a lot of thread!)

green: the art of dependence

after a long and uncomfortable autumn and winter, with no energy or interest in much, i'm finally feeling like i'm resurfacing. i've got both the time and energy to get things done, and to pursue my ever present domestic goals further: decreasing clutter; decreasing costs; becoming increasingly better at living sustainably. luckily, getting better at one of those things often means getting better at the others.
a great inspiration in this is bjørk's blog, spiderwebmama. she is always looking for new ways to becoming greener, and that inspires me. she admits to the difficulty of being green, but that doesn't stop her from trying out new stuff.

the original subtitle of my own blog was 'a creative outlook on the art of dependence'. it was inspired by the norwegian "declaration of dependence", put together by 52 organizations and handed over to the prime minister at the time:
on june 7th 2005, norway celebrated its 100 year anniversary for its independence from sweden, which it had been in a forced union with for 91 years. during the celebration, while the people's main focus was on independence, the golden calf of our time along with individualism, representatives from the 52 organizations signed the newly written declaration of dependence. it was a solemn occation, with speeches and the presence of many politicians, including the prime minister.
the starting-point of the declaration was questions like: how does todays strong focus on individualism affect our different communities; our family lives, at school, with friends, in our work lives, in our organizations? how does it affect the way we perceive society? how does it affect our global consciousness? it concludes with the fact that we are more dependant than ever - both as individuals and as a nation.

the 7 points of the declaration are (i'm sorry for the sometimes bad translation):

we are dependant on mother earth
we all need a living earth. our fragile planet depends on each and one of us reflecting on our actions, so that the earth will stay fertile and in balance.

we are dependant on community
we all need to be a part of a whole, to belong in a multifarious society built on solidarity and community. the safety of the individual depends on an existing community where many take responsibility, and where there is trust and mutuality.

we are dependant on safety
we all need a safe haven. a safe and good home, food on the table, and help when we are ill.

we are dependant on recognition
we are all equally valuable. we all need to be respected as we are. we need to give and take through meaningful tasks that challenges and developes the intellectual, artistic, ethic and spiritual abilities latent in every man.

we are dependant on protection
we all need protection against encroachment. there are rules to protect people's dignity in peace and war. we all depend on these rules to be followed.

we are dependant on expression
we all need to express ourselves. through unfolding, play and speech we can keep our curiosity, our wonder, and develop our understanding and empathy. nature, culture, religion and filosophy contribute to the opening of our senses and to put our lives in a greater context.

we are dependant on time
we all need peace, quiet and reflection, to rest and to be able to make the best decisions for ourselves and society. we need time to be able to give care and loving attention.

we depend on each other and we all need love, care and values that provides us and society with directions. this will give us hope in these challenging times, and confidence in our ability to achieve our goals.
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(in the words of bilbo; there and here again. full circle. i hope you understand what i mean.)

my understanding of man's dependency on mother earth is great. my understanding of man's dependancy on man is less great, but in progress. i thought my blog was to be about green creativity; recycling stuff into art and craft, and thoughts on the interconnectedness of humans and the planet. i wasn't able to be consistent to that, and, as a mirroring of myself and my life, the blog went in all directions. and so it probably will continue to do. nevertheless, i'm going to try to blog about sustainable solutions to domestic doings as well. first post tomorrow: family cloth!!

(link til 07-06-05 om avhengighetserklæringen.
også her.)