sassafras sun tea

I had an order of sassafras tea from a favorite herb supplier of mine, so, after reading up on reusing pickle jars/mason jars for sun tea on another crafter’s blog, I decided to try it myself but use sassafras leaf instead of black tea.

The result was peculiar: the sassafras gave out what was almost a sap, it was so gooey and sticky. Even after diluting it a bit, there was still an odd, saplike quality to it. So I decided to go and read what that sap stuff was.

On first reading, I learned two things:

1. It gets used as a thickener in traditional gumbos.

2. Sassafras contains safrole, which was determined to be cancer causing back in the 1960s.

By that time I had ingested several glasses of it, so it threw me into a blind panic. Denial causes me to reread things. In this case, that was good.

I read that the safrole is found in the bark and root – that the leaf has less than .005% of the dose required to be cancer causing. I could eat an entire tree’s leaves and it would still take me a long time to get that dosing.

It also turns out that trying it as sun tea was a good instinct – apparently if you hit sassafras leaf with boiling water, it just turns to gum. Fine if you want to thicken a shrimp sauce but a bit weird if you just want a nice cup of tea.

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reusing product boxes for shiping

I noticed this past summer that my household uses an indordinate number of product boxes: macaroni and cheese here, popsicles there, pretzels should we give into temptation at Sam’s Club…

I also have an inordinate number of paperback books that are held together only by a thread, a shred of glue and a peculiar animistic belief that the book is still a book. After a read on a book in such condition, there are only two choices: put it down the recycling bin, or find some way to recycle it yourself.

So I brought my two excesses together: the boxes and the book. Admittedly, it’s a beginner’s art, and my intended use is to reinforce these with cardboard from the giant box of paper towels we buy once a year and then use them for domestic shipping. I might as well – at least this way, the boxes get used at least once more before hitting the recycling mill.

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ski fence - using skis - in northeast Minneapolis

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This is another of my decoupage/creative reuse projects. Rather than allow perfectly good spice containers to go to waste, I cleaned them up and pulled bits from some old magazines – and played around with the labels. THEN I added some herbal powders for the magical types out there. Whoever he is and whatever he did, use with your gloves on, and remember that you are always liable for your own actions.

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photograph by Diana Rajchel

Among the arts that I am puzzling at giving a try to are the paper arts: specifically origami, and paper cutting. The end result would always be something I fragrance and burn, making it all essentially another sand mandala: I’d spend possibly hours of effort making it only to let it blow away in the wind. Really, it’s a quite beautiful exercise once you get used to it: it all keeps you busy staying in the process of creating.

I also found out that paper cutting is a traditional Polish art form, and it is gorgeous. Maybe I’ll finally learn to cut a straight line. I’m hopeful!

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reused vials in decoupage

I’ve gotten a little obsessed with creative reuse lately. I am a member of the Etsy Trashion team, and that means that once in awhile, I have to come up with actual contributions. While my incinerates and my protest fragrances have stood me in good stead, I also want to expand a little bit into packaging. I go through hordes of perfectly good reusable packaging every day, and while there is some chance it gets recycled, I don’t see the need to do so if it’s still servicable and functional.

I’ve got other variations of decoupaged mini-bottles lined up and waiting. I’m just deciding whether I want to sell them full or empty…maybe I’ll do a bit of both.

Besides, who says decoupage need only apply to scrabble tile pendants?

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