19 episodes
Craftsteading Sally Gardens
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- Leisure
101 ways to save money, get happy, relax and find your creativity by making stuff out of plants you grow, forage or buy.
And even monetise your hobbies!
Craftsteading is about self-sufficiency, making things, lost trades and gardening. It’s about prepping for the apocalypse or relaxing with therapeutic, mindful handicrafts.
Are you looking for something engrossing to take your mind off daily worries? Would you like to learn a relaxing but exciting new skill or craft? Ever wished you could find out how to thriftily make useful and beautiful things to share with your friends and family?
Plants have a lot of other uses besides being edible or medicinal. From dyes, botanical jewellery, broom making, weaving, basketry, lighting, wax, resin, rope, string, to soap oil paint, perfume, musical instruments and much more.
I’ll tell you about the amazing ways you can use plants from your garden, or foraged from the wild. Your very own home-grown or gathered raw materials.
You can learn how to use simple handcrafts that are sometimes lost or forgotten, the very same methods your ancestors used.
Grow your own brooms, baskets, jewellery, containers or whatever you need. You won’t need to buy them from shops any more!
There are so many happiness-inducing craft projects that start with planting a seed. For example, I’ll explain the way I’ve made containers from gourds, jewellery from seeds called Job’s tears, baskets from cattail bulrushes and brooms from sorghum. All home grown.
And if you’re not into gardening , no stress, you can buy supplies from craft stores or online.
Craftsteading is for -
Gardeners and farmers
Makers and craftspeople
Cooks and chefs
home brewers and broom makers
Survivalists and Permaculturists
Geeks and nerds
Weavers and spinners
People who love natural fibers
Back to basics and Simple living enthusiasts
Woodworkers and Do it yourselfers
Each month I’ll bring you a new podcast so be sure to subscribe.
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17. CHRISTMAS TREES. Did you know that they have a surprising range of uses? How do people use them as food and medicine? And what has turpentine got to do with Christmas trees?
When you think of plants that are associated with Christmas, what do you think of first? For most people it’s the Christmas Tree that probably comes to mind.
The tradition of Christmas Trees probably began with the ancient Romans. They had an annual feast called Saturnalia, which they celebrated in December. They would bring evergreen trees into their temples. Saturnalia involved a lot of feasting, wine drinking, and the exchanging of gifts. As often happens when a new religion enters a society, Saturnalian traditions became incorporated into Christmas.
German born Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort, is usually said to have introduced the Christmas Tree into Britain in 1840. In reality, back in December 1800 it was George III’s German wife Queen Charlotte who brought the first Christmas Tree to England.
These days the Christmas Tree can be a completely secular symbol of Christmas celebrations. The tradition is so popular that it has spread around the globe. In the southern hemispheres, where December brings hot weather, people still bring evergreen trees into their homes and decorate them, and lay gifts at their feet.
These days Christmas Trees are usually species of evergreen coniferous trees in the pine family Pinaceae. In this family are cone-bearing trees or shrubs such as cedars, firs, hemlocks, larches, pines and spruces. In this episode I talk about five species of trees that are commonly used as Christmas Trees:
Silver Fir
Abies alba
Veitch Fir
Abies veitchii
Norway Spruce
Picea abies
Douglas Fir
Pseudotsuga menziesii
Monterey Pine
Pinus radiata
You can grow these evergreen Christmas trees in your garden, but make sure you have plenty of space. Mature trees can be truly enormous.
Happy holidays to all Craftsteaders.
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See our photos on Instagram at Mill Cottage, the Little House on the Peninsula
Watch our videos on YouTube at Craftsteading
Visit our website at www.craftsteading.com
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With thanks to freesound.org, Pixabay and YouTube Audio Library for their wonderful free music and FX. Special thanks to Nat Keefe & Hot Buttered Rum for their cool bluegrass music. -
16. Part 2 MONETIZING YOUR CRAFTSTEADING HOBBIES. Where can you sell your Craftsteading products and skills online? What about packaging supplies and freight shipping calculators?
You can sell handmade products online with very little expense in at least 5 ways:
* your own store built with a platform such as Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, BigCommerce, Weebly, Ecwid or Shift4Shop.
* your own WordPress website with Paypal buttons or the Woo Commerce plugin
* third-party marketplaces like Amazon and eBay
*social media sites like Instagram and Facebook.
* niche sites like Etsy and Big Cartel, Amazon Handmade (US), and more.
Here's a list of some more useful online craft sales websites:
ArtFire (US), eCrater, Handmade Artists’ Shop (US),
Folksy (US), Misi (US), Dawanda, Zibbet (US),
iCraft (Canada), Bonanza, Made It Myself,
LocalHarvest (an online directory for organic and local food providers),
Meylah, Indiecart (US), CrateJoy, HyeanaCart
Sourcing Handmade (It helps independent makers find places to sell their products wholesale),
GLC Arts and Crafts Mall,
Madeit (Australia)
Felt (New Zealand)
AFTCRA (US) is the only marketplace dedicated to handmade, and the only marketplace featuring goods made in America http://www.aftcra.com.).
A list of freight shipping calculators in some countries around the world:
USA
USPS (United States Postal Service) Use the USPS Shipping Calculator to compare rates for sending parcels. https://postcalc.usps.com/
UPS USA https://www.ups.com/us/en/Home.page
CANADA
Canada Post https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en
UPS Canada https://www.theupsstore.ca/shipping-cost-calculator/
UK
The Royal Mail https://www.royalmail.com/
Shipping Calculator/price finder https://www.royalmail.com/price-finder
AUSTRALIA
Australia Post https://auspost.com.au/
Shipping Calculator https://auspost.com.au/parcels-mail/calculate-postage-delivery-times/#/
NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Post https://www.nzpost.co.nz/
Rate Finder https://www.nzpost.co.nz/tools/rate-finder
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See our photos on Instagram at Mill Cottage, the Little House on the Peninsula
Watch our videos on YouTube at Craftsteading
Visit our website at www.craftsteading.com -
15. Part 1 MONETIZING YOUR CRAFTSTEADING HOBBIES. What products or skills can Craftsteaders sell? Where can you sell them in the real world? And how do you set your prices?
Whether you’ve grown your own gourds and decorated them, grown your own broomcorn and made artisan brooms, grown your own Jobs Tears and made botanical jewellery, grown your own willow or bamboo and made baskets, grown your own wax myrtles and made fragrant candles, or simply grown your own Craftsteading materials ready for others to use in their crafts, you could end up with a wide range of unique and gorgeous products to sell, as well as some skills that you can teach others.
What products or skills can Craftsteaders sell? Where can you sell them in the real world? And how do you set your prices? I'll answer these questions in this episode.
Remember to tune in next time, to Part 2 of MONETIZING YOUR CRAFTSTEADING HOBBIES to hear the answers to more questions:
Where can you sell your Craftsteading products and skills online?
How do you use Paypal buttons?
What about packaging supplies and freight shipping calculators?
Happy Craftsteading!
See our photos on Instagram at Mill Cottage, the Little House on the Peninsula
Watch our videos on YouTube at Craftsteading
Visit our website at www.craftsteading.com -
14. NETTLES - YOU WON’T BELIEVE THEIR USES! From food and medicine to cosmetics, paper, cordage, textiles, dyes, fertilizer and insecticide!
The humble and underrated stinging-nettle (Urtica dioica) has some amazing secrets. From food and medicine to cosmetics, paper, cordage, textiles for clothing and household linen, dyes, fertilizer and insecticide, nettles have a wide range of uses.
I'll tell you how to make nettle tea, nettle cordage, nettle paper and more.
More than just a weed, nettles are a wonder-plant for craftsteaders.
See our photos on Instagram at Mill Cottage, the Little House on the Peninsula
Watch our videos on YouTube at Craftsteading
Visit our website at www.craftsteading.com -
13. LEMON - YOU WON'T BELIEVE ITS USES! It’s a common fruit but it has a wide range of uses other than as a decoration for a cocktail or a garnish for seafood dish!
This episode is about lemons, Citrus limon. I’ve chosen lemons because it’s pretty likely that most listeners will have access either to lemons the fruit, or a lemon tree, or both.
You can eat the pith, juice, rind and even the flowers of the lemon. Lemons are popular as food and drink but they also have medicinal properties. They can be used as an insect repellent, for metal polishing, or as a bleach. Lemon tree wood is prized for woodworking.
Learn more about this amazing fruit that so many of us take for granted!
See our photos on Instagram at Mill Cottage, the Little House on the Peninsula
Watch our videos on YouTube at Craftsteading
Visit our website at www.craftsteading.com -
12. PLANTS USED FOR LIGHTING. Many plants you can grow in your garden produce a wax or an oil that can be used as lighting fuel or candle wicks.
Plant Oils, Waxes and Wicks for Alternative Lighting:
Many plants you can grow in your garden can be used to provide lighting. Some of these plants produce a wax or an oil that can be made into candles, some yield an oil that can be burnt to produce a bright flame, and others can be used as wicks for candles or lamps.
SHOW NOTES
Oil rich plants you can grow in your garden
Brassica napus – Colza, Oilseed Rape: A hardy annual plant native to the Mediterranean, growing to about four feet tall (just over a metre). The seed contains up to 45% of an edible semi-drying oil that is used for lighting, as a lubricant, in soap making, and as a vegetable wax substitute.
Carthamus tinctorius - Safflower: Grows well in a poor, dry soil in a sunny position. The seeds are oil rich and the flower petals are sometimes used as a substitute for saffron.
Fagus sylvatica - Beech: A hardy, deciduous tree. You can press a semi-drying oil from the seed and use it as a fuel for lighting, as a lubricant, or for polishing wood.
Glaucium flavum - Horned Poppy: Another hardy perennial. This plant grows in any good garden soil. The oil from its seeds is used as a lighting fuel, and burns cleanly. You can also use the oil in soap-making.
Guizotia abyssinica - Ramtil: This hardy annual requires a tropical climate but it has been known to grow in temperate zones. It needs to grow in well-fertilised soil. You can extract a drying oil from the seeds and use it as a lighting fuel or in soap-making.
Lallemantia iberica: Dragon's Head: This is a plant in the mint family that grows to about half a metre (one and a half feet). The seed contains up to 30% of a drying oil that you can use for lighting, as a varnish, in paints, as a lubricant as a wood preservative, or as an ingredient of oil-based paints, furniture polishes, printer's inks and soap.
Sinapis alba - White Mustard: The seed contains up to 35% of a semi-drying oil that you can use as a lubricant or for lighting.
Other wax yielding plants
Aleurites moluccanus, the Candlenut, is a flowering tree that’s also known as Candleberry. Some people even string the seeds together and light them, like a string of little candles.
Ceroxylon alpinum, the Andean Wax Palm, also known as the Andean wax palm. A wax obtained from the trunk is used for making candles.
Euphorbia antisyphilitica, the Candelilla or wax plant. A shrubby little plant with thickly clustered, almost leafless stems covered in wax that you can obtain by simmering the stems, especially in winter, and skimming the wax off the water.
Some members of the Rhus genus have seeds that you can squeeze oil from. At normal temperatures the oil goes semi-soft like tallow, and you can shape it into candles. They include: Rhus chinensis, Chinese Gall, or Chinese sumac.
Rhus succedanea, the Wax Tree and Rhus trichocarpa, Bristly Fruit Sumac.
Santalum acuminatum - Quandong. You can press oil out of the seeds as use it as a lighting fuel.
Sapium sebiferum - Chinese Tallow Tree. The seed is coated with a wax that you can use to make candles and soap, or as a lighting fuel.
Stipa tenacissima and Lygeum spartum, Esparto Grass. You can extract a hard, useful vegetable wax from it.
Copernicia prunifera, Brazilian Wax Palm, Carnauba Palm, Carnauba Wax. The undersides of the leaves are coated with a very useful wax, and you can express oil from the seeds.
Saccharum officinarum, Sugarcane, Purple Sugar Cane. Amazingly, you can get wax from sugar cane.
Copernicia alba, Caranday Palm, or Caranda Palm. You can obtain a high quality wax from the leaves, and use it in polishes or for lighting. Visit our website at www.craftsteading.com and search for Craftsteading on YouTube.