Succulents for Holiday Decorating

Today is the last day to enter the Cash for Christmas gift card giveaway-- 

   If you missed the post earlier this month check it out here:

Cash for Christmas Giveaway 

Succulents for the Holiday

This year succulents are all the rage for the holidays.  You can use them as a table decoration.

This is from a great Etsy shop with wonderful succulent wreaths

This is the Thanksgiving arrangement I made at the Garden Club meeting just a week ago.  We will be using it as a Hostess gift as we are having a Friendsgiving celebration this year!

Garden Club memebers each made our own arrangements and they looked amazingly cool!

You can use succulents to make a Christmas tree, by covering a foam cone with moss and chicken wire, or cutting floral foam into a cone as the base into which one pokes the succulent stems.

On WGN I saw a decorated tree where they put living succulents in little pots into a faux tree and it was an amazing effect.  I think I will be trying it myself.  Using succulents in Holiday Tree decorations was made that into a decorating challenge back in 2014 at  DIYSHOWOFF.com where you can see how they meld wonderfully in a natural scene.  I think they will look great with my pine cone tree decoration theme.

Care of Succulents
The best part of using succulents indoors in winter is that they are mostly dormant and do not mind the dry weather of a heated home.  Don't over water them.  Only about once a month is needed in winter and only if the leaves start to show some withering meaning they have exhausted the soil moisture and the water reserve in their leaves.  No more frequently than every two weeks is recommended, just make sure the soil is completely dry before you wet it again.  A sunny location is perfect, but they do not need direct sunlight.

Time for Cash for Christmas Contest / Giveaway

Time again to get Cash (gift cards) just in time for Holiday Shopping!

We have participated in this before and there are a variety of hosts you can find at the bottom of this post.  To get you in the Christmas Spirit, I have a great easy craft for scenting Pine Cones you can try.  There are two different methods, so scroll down to find all the fun!

Method 1

Cinnamon Essential Oil Spray

Add about 20 drops of cinnamon essential oil to the spray bottle.  Add a small amount of water to the bottle -- about 1/8 cup. Shake well.  Put pinecones into resealable plastic bag and spray lightly with the solution.  Shake the bag to help distribute the fragrance. Repeat this step two more times, making sure that all the pinecones have been sprayed. Take care not to over spray! You don't want them too wet.  Finally, seal the bag and leave the pinecones to fully infuse the scent. I suggest leaving them for 4 weeks for maximum effect, spraying again with the oil solution again after two weeks.

It's time for a Christmas giveaway! Are you getting geared up for the shopping season? Do you need extra cash for Christmas?? Don't we all!

 We are so excited to be giving away $360 in cash prizes for you to use starting this Thanksgiving weekend. Here are the prizes: 1 - $150 Amazon Gift Card 1 - $100 Target Gift Card 1 - $50 Walmart Gift Card 1 - $50 Kohls Gift Card And a $10 Starbucks gift card as an extra bonus winner!! There will be 5 winners in this giveaway. Each winner will receive a gift card code to use on the online store or in the actual store. Now its time to meet our wonderful co-hosts who have made this giveaway possible. 

Starting at the top row we have: Teresa - Sweet Farmhouse Dreams | Kristin - White Arrows Home | Audrey - That Recipe & Munofore | Susan - Culinary Envy | Carrie - Curly Crafty Mom | Tammy - Creative K Kids | Linda - A Labour of Life | Kenyatta - My Design Rules | Gladys - Moms To Grandma | Carol - The Red Painted Cottage | Emily - Domestic Deadline | Kara - Phoenix Mom Blog | Sinea - Ducks 'n a Row | Whitney - Beauty, Baby, and a Budget | Meredith - The Mom of the Year | Gina - Money Savvy Living | Trish - By Trish Sutton | Habiba - Craftify My Love | Marcy - Backyard Patch Herbal Blog | Marilyn - Marilyns Treats | Terri - Christmas Tree Lane | Jamie - As For Me and My Homestead | Debi - Life Currents |Marie - The Inspiration Vault | Donna - Blog By Donna | Tammy - My Life Abundant | Michelle - Our Crafty Mom

Please stop by and say hi to these wonderful ladies and their blogs. The giveaway will end midnight on Wednesday, November 22nd, the night before Thanksgiving. You will have 48 hours to respond to the email claiming the prize. If you respond right away, we will get you the gift card code promptly so that you can shop with it on Black Friday! If we don't hear in 48 hours, we will have to choose another winner. 
Open to anyone who can receive gift cards from Amazon, Target, Walmart, Kohls, and Starbucks a Rafflecopter giveaway


Method 2
Ground Cinnamon and Glue Pine Cones

If you want instant results (rather than waiting weeks), this glue-on method takes far less time -- although a little bit messier! Using a disposable craft brush, thoroughly coat one of the pinecones with a thin layer of glue. Work fairly quickly so that the glue remains tacky and doesn't dry out before the next step. Sprinkle the entire glue-coated pinecone with cinnamon evenly all around and in between the crevices. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for all pinecones. Remove the excess cinnamon by individually shaking each pinecone, or placing all of the pinecones in a sealed container and shaking gently. Once the glue has dried, your cinnamon-scented pinecones are ready.

Another Edible Gift - Herbal Holiday Cookies

Check out the first post with Tarragon Mustard that also shows all the links for the Gift Card Giveaway.  You can enter the giveaway until Midnight on Wednesday November 22, 2017

This rosy cider simmers for just 10 minutes, making a great choice for drop-in visitors or last-minute parties. Great served with Christmas Cookies.

Rosie Christmas Cider

1 small orange, halved
1 teaspoon whole cloves
8 cups apple cider or apple juice
4 cups cranberry juice
1 tablespoon honey
6 inches stick cinnamon

Push tips of cloves into orange rinds.  In a 4- to 6-quart Dutch oven, combine cider, cranberry juice and honey. Add clove-studded orange halves and stick cinnamon. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, for 10 minutes. Discard orange halves and cinnamon sticks before serving.

Holiday Spice Cookies

Cookies always take some planning and a bit of effort, but the recipients of these cookie gifts will be grinning all through the holiday.  And the spicy flavor makes them a perfect complement to the Cider recipe above.

Chewy Spice Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled 

3 1/4 teaspoons Cinnfull Dessert Blend*

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda 

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 

3/4 cup vegetable shortening (preferably trans-fat-free) 

2/3 cup packed light brown sugar 

1 large egg 

1/2 cup molasses 

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 

1/4 cup granulated sugar 

Heat oven to 350° F. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, Cinnful Dessert Blend, baking soda, salt, and pepper. Using an electric mixer, beat the shortening and sugar on medium-high speed until fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low and beat in the egg, molasses, and vanilla. Add the flour mixture, mixing just until combined (do not over mix).  Place the granulated sugar on a plate. Roll heaping tablespoonfuls of the dough into balls; roll in the sugar to coat. Place on parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing them 2 inches apart. Using a glass, press the balls to a ⅜-inch thickness and sprinkle with more granulated sugar.  Bake, rotating the sheets halfway through, until the edges are firm, 10 to 12 minutes. Cool slightly on the baking sheets, then transfer to racks to cool completely. Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.

*Email me at Marcy@backyardpatch.com if you want a substitute spice blend for the Cinnful Desert Blend mentioned in the recipe.

Herbal Gifting

I decided to give my guests some holiday cash!  In addition to helping you make some herbal and edible gifts this Christmas, we are kicking off the holiday posts with a gift card giveaway.  Scroll past the recipe to find all the details.  And stop back for more recipes and entry reminders in the coming days.

Make a hand-made mustard and pair it with Herbal Honey for a perfect homemade gift.  They this sophisticated mustard that is very simple to make.

Tarragon Mustard

1/4 cup black mustard seeds

1/4 cup yellow mustard seeds

1/4 cup dry powdered mustard

3/4 cup cold water

1/4 cup dry white wine

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

1 teaspoon dried tarragon

1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

Mix mustard seeds, powdered mustard, and water in the upper pan of a lined, glass or stainless steel  double boiler. Let stand at least three hours. In another stainless steel or enamel saucepan, mix the wine, vinegar, tarragon, and allspice and bring to a boil. Strain the liquid into the mustard mixture and blend well.  In the lower pan of the double boiler, heat water to boiling, then reduce heat to a simmer. Place the upper pan, containing the mustard mixture, on top. Cook, stirring, until the mustard is as thick as you like. It will thicken a bit more as it cools. Cover and refrigerate.

Mustard keeps for an extended time, so make ahead and give as a gift, just tell the recipient to keep it refrigerated and bring freshness into their winter cooking.

UPDATED to remove out of date information

Winners in the Phyllis Shaudys Raffle

Congratulations to the Winners in the Phyllis Shaudys Raffle

Oct. 31 was the last day of our Book giveaway raffle. We ran the entrants through random.org and these two lucky people won:

         Pleasure of Herbs - Judy C

         Herbal treasures - Theresa B

Thank you to everyone who entered.  We will be having another Raffle soon with a more recently published book called Healing Herbs by Tina Sams.  If you want details about this book, check out my review.

Giveaway and Info on Phyllis Shaudys

I have posted about books and authors in the past.  Today I want to talk about another author, although I have not actually met her,  Phyllis Shaudys.  When I first got into herbs, her books taught me much of the basics and introduced me to a rich herb community.  I was sad to know that she passed away without much notice and wrote an obituary of sorts about her on the blog.

Recently I was contacted by a woman in New York who had old copies of Phyllis Shaudys Newsletter, Potpourri from Herbal Acres.  The newsletter was started in 1979 and although I have seen a few stray copies over the years, this is a complete set of 5 years of newsletters from volume 3 to volume 7 as well as a combined volume of the first year of newsletters.  It is an amazing glimpse into what was going on in the herbal community that was gaining momentum in the 1980s. Jean Zeller sent me the newsletters because of the blog post I did back in 2015.  It was incredibly thoughtful of her and I followed up by sending her a few herbal gifts.

As I sat down to read through the newsletters the day they arrived, I found several interesting tidbits.  There was an article written by travel writer, Barbara Radcliff Rogers.  I recognized the name, but it took a trip to the book shelf to realize I owned a book written by her in the 1990s entitled Fresh Herbs.  She was cutting her herb teeth from her family Herb Farm in New Hampshire by writing for Potpourri from Herbal Acres among others.

I suddenly begin to hope that my experience writing for TheEssential Herbal and Wisconsin Herbalist can result in my ability to publish a book on herbs some day!

A few days before I received the package in the mail, I had an opportunity to acquire copies of both of Phyllis Shaudy’s major herb books, Pleasure of Herbs and Herbal Treasures.  I have decided that in honor of all these things aligning at the same time, I am going to give away the books in an online raffle.  Below is a link to sign up for the raffle.  If you enter you will be signed up for my monthly newsletter. If you want a second entry, you can like us on Facebook too!

The contest runs until the end of October, so invite your friends to join you! If you do you will get another entry.

I cannot wait to share these out of print books with another generation of herb happy people!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giveaway Winners Thank you for participating

Sorry it has taken so long to get to this.  We were hit by a terrible storm on July 1st and that stole away my internet access.  But here are the winners of the Orange Citrus Bath Salts:

We had five people post comments here, so all five of them win a package:

CJ
The Ugly Barn Farm
Mama SamSam
Jamie Leigh
Kim May


Then we chose 5 random people who shared about us on Facebook.  For this we used a randomizer from Random.org and came up with this list:

Madiha Fatima
Zari Cherie
Maria Etheridge
Wild Montana Herbs
Ellen Schwartz

Everyone needs to send me a mailing address to the backyardpatch (at) juno.com email and I will send off the salts.

For those who were not aware.  This is what we are giving away:

If you are interested in making these salts for yourself, please take a look at our How To post!

And please consider donating to the MS Society.

How Tuesday - Making Citrus Bath Salts

These are the bath salts I made for the Chesapeake MS Challenge Walk that was held June 9 in Maryland.  I love doing what I can for the Multiple Sclerosis Society, unlike breast cancer which does not run in my family, MS seems to be a disease that has affected my family more than once.  As a result is it what I call my "charity of choice."  So when I was asked to do bath salts on a budget, this is what I crafted as a significant donation.

 Read to the bottom for a special giveaway I have planned for these extra salts.

How to - Make Citrus Bath Salts

The salts are not too hard to make.  You just need to let the steps “marinate” for a while to get a perfect batch.

First I put the Epsom salts in the bowl and colored them with food coloring.  I used red and yellow together by dropping first the yellow then the red in exactly the same spots then stirring briskly.  I use a pair of small plastic salad or serving tongs to do the mixing.  This seems weird but it is because you have to break up the clumps when you make salts like this.  The jaws of the tongs can get in and do that.

Once colored I let the salts sit for 24 hours to really absorb the color.  You want to make them a bit darker than your finished product so that when you add the other salts you will not dilute the color too much.

Then I measure in the sea salt and corn starch.  I use those in this recipe to keep the salts from being overly drying to skin.  Cornstarch soothes dry itchy skin and sea salt adds minerals and nutrients.

Once these are thoroughly mixed in then I measure in the baking soda, but before I stir the baking soda in I add the essential oil.  In this case a combination of grapefruit and sweet orange oil to go with the color.  I should mention that the MS Society chose the color as that was the shade for the logo they were using this year.  I enjoyed using a color I never had before in bath salts.

I let the essential oil soak into the baking soda for at least 30 minutes before I stir it in, being sure to break up the clumps that have formed.  Baking soda holds scent better than any other salt.  (That is why you put it in the refrigerator to clear away odors!)  By adding the essential oil to the baking soda you get the best scent retention and let me tell you these were exquisite.

Then all I had to do was bag up 200 of them.  The boxes were totally full when I shipped them which means the extra I just naturally create when making big batches like this could not be passed on to the MS Society. 

The Giveaway

I am going to give the 10 extra packages of Bathsalts the last batch produced to my viewers here.  If you post a comment about why you like, make, enjoy or want to try bath salts I will place you in a drawing and at the end of the day on Saturday June 30, 2012. I will draw out 10 names and mail off a package of these orange scented bath salts to you!  And if you can get someone to follow the blog or friend us on facebook I will enter your name again for each friend or follower you encourage.  Just post here the names so I can verify you recommended them.

How do we use these bath salts?  Let’s have some fun:  Of course you can dissolve them in your bath water, only 1 Tbls. per bath is needed for a good soak.  Use ½ Tbls. for a foot soak.  Now if you are a shower only person you can still enjoy the salts as a body scrub (just not on the face.)  Place a Tablespoon in the center of a wash cloth and wet it well.  Use the cloth on legs, arms, elbows, heels and any other rough patches to increase exfoliation.

The Recipe:

3/4 cup Epsom Salts

1 Tbls. sea salt

1 Tbls. Cornstarch

3 Tbls. Baking Soda

20 to 30 drops 100% essential oil (I used 20 grapefruit and 10 orange)

Blend together and keep in a tightly sealed jar.

Remember that we have many types of bath salts at the Backyard Patch.