Beauty is in Your Own Backyard
Our good friends have put out a book that reminds us to pause and honor your lived-in space as a reflection of your inner experience. Diary of Your Home is a guided journal to help you chronicle your home—the place itself, as well as the things and memories that it provides. Full of tips to organize, preserve, and flesh out both the small and massive projects in your home, the book is peppered with little anecdotes from the author's own upbringing, commonly relating the past to the present.
“My dad once told me that as a child he loved to carefully write out the long version of his home address- line by line- including his house number, street, city, county, state, postal code, country, continent, hemisphere, planet, solar system, galaxy, and universe. ”
We loved this idea of writing out your long-form address, stretch-thinking about your immediate roots, to your place in the world and even the solar system.
Taking the book outdoors, we thought about our yard while notating observations of the animals and flora as instructed. We touched and talked to our plants and gathered a few parts to keep.
Pressed-flower Tattoos first seen on Hippie In Disguise Blog
Pressed-Flowers Hack: THE MICROWAVE!!!
Picture this stack from the bottom up; microwave-safe plate, doubled paper towel, flowers delicately laid out, doubled paper towel, microwave-safe plate.
Put this stack into the microwave and heat on high for about 40 seconds (this depends on the flower, delicate petals will dry in about 20 seconds, ferns take about 50 seconds). Check to see if the flowers feel dry, but not crisp. If they still feel really damp, put them back in for about 10 seconds. Repeat as necessary.
The paper towels soak up the moisture and the plates get wet so I dry the plates and switch paper towels between each batch. You can just let the paper towels sit out for a few minutes to dry so that you won't use so many.
It's best to let the flowers rest on a paper towel for a few hours before using it in your work. They seem to last better.
