Winter Cleaning and Reorganization!

The inside of the metal shed is really coming along.  I should have taken "before" photos.  Over the last couple of years, as I periodically cleaned up piles of debri from rat parties shredding everything, all of the counters had become stuffed with clutter.  I am not done, but I have clean work surfaces.  And last night I found a great plan for constructing a wedging table for ceramic clay!  So easy I can build it myself.  Now... where to put it...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

  One of the reasons a new shed was so necessary to adjoin to the old metal shed before I could use it to work in, is the wild rats!!  They destroy everything.  They chew the plastic off of wiring to electrical items.  So the kiln has never been taken out of it's box.  Not that they haven't been trying to chew into it!  They pulverize styro foam for bedding.  They shred everything for nests and make nests in every nook and cranny.  Like my collection of woven baskets.  And they destroyed the dried armadillo basket my mother gave me long ago.  It is a real armadillo and I used the skin to make surface texture molds for my ceramic boxes. 
  The last step towards keeping them out, was packing the gaps between the walls and the roof with fiberglass.
  There is still a lot of cleaning and re-organizing to be done.  And that is what I'll be doing for Christmas.  
  Not everything you see in the mess outside is garbage!  A lot of it is paper intended for my future endeavor of making handmade lavender infused paper.
  See you next year!

Inventing New Ways To Use My Lavender

As many of you know, the sale of my lavender crop is intended to fund the rebuilding of my heirloom upright fuchsia nursery.  But most people have never heard of a lavender wand and everyone on the planet with a lavender bush sells lavender sachets.  I literally give away most of my lavender sachets, I put one in with every order no matter what the order is for. 

Since so few people know that lavender wands exist, they are not searching for them.
So how do I get people who are searching for items, to land in my Etsy shop?
First, as I was trying to figure out how to add a label to my wands so people would know where to get them, I discovered the end caps and realizes that I could turn my wands into pendants.  Yeah!
I have been having a blast making those and it is going well so far.  I am still lost in a pile of other pendants called lavender because lavender is also a color...
Even so, people are liking them and I am hopeful.

And some of you may know that I write a blog called Artisans Of America where I look for and then promote other artists in 16 categories from botanical to wood.  When I am searching for someone new to promote, I come across so many fascinating things! 

Which has lead me to start making two new items with my lavender.  One of them is a bookmark/landyard accessory which if you don't want to use as a bookmark, can be clipped around your rear view mirror like I do with the pendant that I made for myself.  And the other one is a key fob or zipper pull.  It took a while to figure out how to make something that could endure the use that a zipper pull or key fob does.  Most lavender sachets are sold in "organza" bags which are so thin that pulverized lavender comes through the fabric.  So I went with silk!  Then I had to figure out how to attach them.  I can't use the lavender wands for these because I don't think ( I could be wrong ) that the little woven baskets would hold up long with a lot of use.

So here are two examples of my new items:  Lavender Bookmarks and Lavender Key Fobs!

You can find versions of both of these in my Etsy shop Pedricks

Making A Dream Come True

There has been a lot of progress in helping my sister Phoebe return to her home town of Santa Cruz, California.  She is no longer stuck way up on the rural coast of northern California and the rv trailer is now in storage up north. 
Thank-you to everyone who has contributed to the GoFundMe campaign so far!

Part of what we need to accomplish is bringing the rv and all of her personal belongings down from up north.  She drove down with pretty much nothing and when she arrived last week after driving all the way from Ukiah, the check engine light in her Jeep had come on.
We know that the Jeep needs new brake pads, a tune-up, and the four wheel drive checked.  But now we also need to have what ever is causing the check engine light to come on.  And we are scheduled to bring the Jeep in for repairs to a very experienced and trustworthy mechanic Tuesday morning.

The needed repairs are probably going to be one of the biggest expenditures of bringing Phoebe back home.  She has already begun searching for a job, but she is also going to need funds for a security deposit and first months rent somewhere.  Hopefully within Santa Cruz County if not in Santa Cruz itself.
If you live anywhere near the San Francisco Bay Area or the Monterey Bay Area, then you know that $5,000 is pretty much the bare minimum to get her Jeep repaired, put cash down on a place to live, rent a truck strong enough to bring her rv and possessions down from Ukiah, and living expenses while we attempt to accomplish all of this.

Please help us make her dream come true!
Facebook will not allow me to boost a post that comes from GoFundMe, but they will allow me to pay to boost a post from my blog for Pedricks Corner.
You can find a link to the GoFundMe campaign at the top of the right hand side of this blog.
Please click on the link.
Please share like, share, and leave a comment.  Especially if you know Phoebe.
Because liking and sharing posts is how they go "viral" and reach thousands of people.

Phoebe is a talented photographer and I would love to help her continue her art.  As I post updates to the campaign, I've been adding as many of her photos as I can.  We are limited to three per update.  You can see them all by clicking on the little camera icon in the lower right hand corner of the main photo for the campaign.

Thank-you!

Unicorns

Someone I know loves Unicorns.

Real Hibiscus Tea - Hibiscus sabdariffa

Most people enjoy hibiscus tea.  Some even know the dried flowers are delicious eaten like dried fruit.  But few realize that the flower used for this is actually "Jamaican Sorrel" or Hibiscus sabdariffa.  I have been wanting to grow it for years.  And this guy is from some seed I bought.  He was the only one that came up, but I have high hopes for him! 

Help Bring My Sister Home

I started a GoFundMe campaign for my sister Phoebe.  She was born and raised in Santa Cruz and would really like to come back home, but she is stuck in northern California where there are no jobs and few places to live.  The area is so rural she can't even make the money needed to move anywhere, let alone back to Santa Cruz.  She has an rv that needs to be towed and stored.  She has a vehicle that needs repairs.  And she has a job offer.
Now we just need to get her here!

Facebook will not let me pay to boost a post that is linked to GoFundMe.
But they will let me boost a post from my blog.

And I have posted a link to the GoFundMe campaign here on the blog.

So I need you to go to my page for PedricksCorner and look for the post about Phoebe and the GoFundMe post. 
Even if you can't donate, you can like and SHARE the post!
Your friends cannot see that you like the post unless you share it.
Please, this is how posts go "viral", it is from people taking a second to share the posts they see.

If you donate, you will see updates to how the campaign is going and I will be certain to post about our success if we are able to get this done.

Here is a photo of Phoebe when she was on the women's swim team at Cabrillo College in 1993.