Candles part 2

Barefoot Seamstress

Just added our hand-dipped candles and more organic baby burpies and booties to the shop!
Also, Elizabeth has added smaller flip-flops in the Women's 5-6 range.

Come and take a look!

~~Laura

Candles part 1

Don't know what yall think, but around here NOTHING smells better than 100% pure beeswax! MMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmm!!!!

I love the sweet honey-like smell that our hand-dipped beeswax candles make.
Here is part 1 of our journey of candle dipping..........

We started with 6 huge blocks (that equaled 17.2 pounds) of pure beeswax..........

Yes we did make a HUGE mess chopping these big blocks into smaller pieces! ;-)

As our harp teacher would tell you, I had several big blisters from scrubbing our "waxed" floor after it had a big layer of wax on it! Ouch!
We found this old pan and wonderful cast-iron skillet at goodwill-- love that store!!


Elizabeth had a wonderful time taping down a ton of paper that turned out to be of no use to our tile floor.......... but it saved all of our counter tops!!! ;-)


Our dad gave us these "weights" from his tool box and we tied cotton wicking to them. Now we are all ready to dip!



P.S. We have this old bar attachment to our riding lawn mower that we don't use -- yep!, you guessed it -- perfect place to hang our candles to cool! ;-)

~~Laura

Websites

Boy has this been a busy year so far!  Farmers' markets, sewing, websites, photography classes, baking, knitting, harp lessons, music recitals, guitar playing, candle dipping, soap making, birthday's...... we have done it all!  whew!  So many things to post about!  

Well, to start off I would like to mention that www.barefootseamstress.com is getting a makeover!  Elizabeth and I are making new additions faster than I can get pictures of them and then uploaded them on the site.  We are adding - funky, retro aprons, organic baby items including burpies, booties, hats and blankets, tea cozies, hand-dipped candles, homemade soaps, wonderful smelling lavender products, hand knit dishcloths, spa sets, and a bunch more that I can't think of at the moment!  ;-) 

A new addition to my list of "things that I love to do" is a photography business!  Yes www.imagesbylauraelizabeth.com is under construction!  Finally!!  :-)

Well, I will be posting our candle-dipping pictures as well as everything else that we have been up to very soon, so keep an eye out!

~~Laura

What can we say?

I know that "I'm sorry" really doesn't cut it this time. Our last break from blogging didn't have an excuse, but this time is different however. About 6 months ago we realized that Elizabeth had more food allergies than we could count. She and I also learned that we are gluten intolerant. All of this excess baking (and eating something that she was allergic to) really took a toll on Elizabeth and until recently she had been in and out of the doctor's office twice a week. Thank goodness she is doing better and is only going once every two weeks! We are now back to normal with a few additional activities that we can't wait to share! We have a lot of catching up to do, so hang around and see what has been going on around here. :-)

~~Laura

January Women's Luncheon Bazaar

Tea Anyone?

Here are some of the tea cozies that I made for a women's luncheon bazaar in January. They are made out of fabric from the Homestead in Fredericksburg. I have sold out of most of them but am in the process of finishing some more that will be available in my shop very soon. I'll also have them at our next farmer's market March 21 at Grey Forest.

~~Laura

Farmers Market Again!

Our second trip to the farmers market in Santa Fe in 2007. Only this time it was coooollldddd! What can we say, we're from south Texas.

We filled our ice chest and all sorts of corners of the van as usual with treasures from the market. Aahh! The smells and colors. We love it!

~~ Sisters

Christmas Stockings #2 & 3

Finally got two other stocking pictures loaded. We are really excited about the market tomorrow. Hope to see the regular market goers there.

~~Laura

Christmas Stocking #1

I will have this at the market Friday


~~Laura


For a larger image click on the picture

Elizabeth's Dishcloths

I am making cute dishcloths for the farmers market, and I thought that I would share a sample with you.

Some are really neat bright colors, and some more pastel. The one below is one of the examples of my bright ones. It is a waffle knit pattern that I got from homespunliving , and I am playing around with the stripes. Some will have two, and others none. If you don't wash dishes yourselves, they make really neat gifts and presents!

~~Elizabeth

Sneak Peak

Here are a few sneak peaks of Christmas stockings I'll have at this week's market. I will post the finished products before Friday. They are made with fabrics and trim from Santa Fe and Homestead in Fredericksburg. -- Beautiful

~~Laura

Picnic Roll

Here is a new addition to our farmers market goodies. It's a picnic roll that we will be selling with cute blue handled utensils. I'll have these in different fabrics including a fun retro style we picked up in Santa Fe. I am also starting on some Christmas stockings that I will post later.

~~Laura

Au Revoir Garden Bread

Now that hatch chili season and basil weather is coming to an end, we will put a couple of breads to rest for the farmers market.

Our 2 french loaves that are stuffed with hatch chilis and sun-dried tomato pesto bread will be temporarily retired to make room for some fun fall goodies.



The new additions will include Pumpkin Cranberry Loaves (made with honey and no sugar), and our version of the Chocolate Zucchini Muffins. The pumpkin cranberry loaves are made with fresh organic cranberries that are sooo delicious and give a bright light flavor instead of the heavier denser dried cranberry versions. The chocolate zucchini muffins are so light tasting they could fly away -- once again with whole wheat flour and honey.

~~Sisters

Our Favorite Time Of The Year

Our favorite time of the year is 'Green Hatch Chili Season'. We will either get our roasted hatch chilis from Santa Fe, NM (if we are there in September ;-)) or we will get some from Whole Foods. (in the pictures below) We love to visit all the vendors at the Santa Fe farmers market who not only sell the chilis, but also roast them on site. The smell of roasted chilis can't be matched.

After packaging bags for the freezer, we then go to work.




Our first favorite thing to make with the fresh green chilis is homemade hot sauce -- YUMMY!
We use fresh tomatoes, garlic, cilantro, green chilis, lime juice and salt. Then we blend it all up in a food processor. While we are munching on chips and hot sauce, we start getting creative.




For this particular meal we made some chili mashers to go with Daddy's meal.




Here is Daddy's 'meat and potatoes' meal. We used grass-fed beef, organic carrots, the chili mashers, and of course chili season wouldn't be complete without roasted green chili french bread.


While Daddy was enjoying his steak we were enjoying our "BIG" salad. We start with a bed of greens, PILE on guacamole, sprinkle on corn and red peppers, splash on some of the roasted hatch chili hot sauce, and for an extra punch throw on more diced chilis.

Below is Muddy's salad ~~ Can you tell that we are from the Southwest? ;-)




To kinda cool the palate, this particular meal I made whole wheat sopapillas. We dipped them in plenty of raw honey ---- YUUUUUMMMMMY!

~~ Laura

French Day

While studying French with our friends, we enjoyed this Provencal Fougasse with our salad for lunch. Although this is an awesome bread, we don't make it for market because of it's 1 day shelf-life. It tastes great for a couple of days, but it is the texture of a cracker after the first. (This particular day it turned 'cracker' on us after 2 hours. ;-)

EASY TO MAKE

~~Laura

Grey Forest Farmers Market

I just wanted to let those of you who were attending the Grey Forest Farmers Market today that it has been canceled due to flooded roads and bridges.  We will be there September 7 with everything that we have had in the past.  We will also be adding some new breads, cookies and handmade items.  

I will post later about the new flavors!

~~Laura 

We're Selling at the Farmers Market!

She makes linen garments and sells them,
And supplies belts to the tradesmen.
Proverbs 31:24



She rises also while it is still night
And gives food to her household...
Proverbs 31:15

These last couple of weeks have been REALLY busy! We've been participating in a couple of local Farmers Markets! The first one was at 9:00 a.m. so we started baking at 4:00 that morning. This past Friday it didn't begin until 3:00 p.m. so we had a bit more time. It was a much larger market, so we still started baking at 5:00 a.m. to be able to bring many more items. As you will see in the pictures, we baked and baked and baked and baked.

The baked goods included ~

Challah Bread

Jalapeño Cheese Bread

Daddy's Favorite Sticky Buns

Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

I also had a selection of Aprons and Knitted Baby items. Elizabeth was the one who made those CUTE flip~flops.

We sold out of all of the baked goods within the first couple of hours. (Daddy was sad that there were none left over for him. :-) We had SOOO much fun. We are now getting ready for this Saturday's market.

Here are some of the 'Highlights' of our first two markets:

~~Laura