Watercolour Painting: Illustrated Garden Alphabet Letter X
Happy Holidays to you, and take great pleasure in catching up with yourself, new friends, and Dear Ones. If you please, visit The Shop at Dove Cottage for my new and classic Gentle Life collections to celebrate the seasons with charming original children’s books, artwork, prints, soft organic apparel, design, and soon stationery again, too! For Design help for the holidays, message me, here. All items are handmade with ethical, responsible materials, positive energy, great care, fun imagination, and pure Love. ~Amor Milagre
Staying in on cozy Sunday mornings, frost on the garden, and Angels twirling in handmade pink nightgowns. On the stove, red apples soften into a sumptuous, warm, pink sauce, swirling in cinnamon. Wonderful to taste when warm or cold at your daily and holiday teatime. Sweet voices sing, “May I have a little bit more please?” Happy Sweet November to you! Lots of projects are releasing this month here and in The Shop at Dove Cottage. ~Amor Milagre
Pink Applesauce
Holidays made easy. Celebrate all the days. A little as you go. Pick apples fresh off the tree or gather some at the market for this simple and versatile recipe. No need to wait for holidays, the wonder of the colour is in the skin of the apple. The nutrients are there, only steamed until soft. Add this sauce into other dishes as a natural moisturizer & sweetener, have as a side dish, and have for a cozy snack on her own. Besides lovely raw foods, lightly cooked recipes like this are easy, healthy, and pleasurable to make, providing a cozy atmosphere, a warm, spicy cloud for the senses!
Wash a few red apples, more if serving more. Add the roughly diced apples to a pan with a little bit of water for steaming. Sprinkle in 1 tsp of cinnamon, pinch of ground cloves, nutmeg, and a little splash of vanilla or the insides of some vanilla bean. Add a lid and steam the apples until easily pierced by a fork or knife point, about 10 minutes or less, on med-low. Serve like this or lightly blend gently with a fork for applesauce.
Satisfying on its own, as a side dish, snack, and dessert. Enjoy warm, cold, or room temperature. This is a favourite for all ages here. Simple and quick to make, this helps parents and children read a little book while it cooks, then delight together when ready and sweetly fragrant.
This recipe has no added sugar, which is especially great for anyone ill and pregnant moms-to-be, to help stay in optimal health for you and your baby. (It may be helpful when served cold, if ‘morning sickness’ ails you).
A little matching holiday cooking film is coming soon.
Evening kitchen dancing in misty tones. Dusty cinnamon cranberries bake, scenting the air warmly. A walk where the wild roses roam, gently gathering fallen petals, so naturally pleasing and delicate. The word ‘sweet’ was named for you. A bath runs away into the night stars. Twirling and swirling, the petals ride on faerie water tides. Sweet is this bath, and noses giggle with petals that stick. Look at those rosy cheeks, oh one fell into the water! Laughs and unwound senses breathe. Pajama families dance and sing into dreams: light, loving, and airy. In the morning, float out in vast Nature in the calming beauty that we all are. Ocean, lake, pond, river, pool, or puddle. Water is life! Keep it healthy for all, clean it up, and stay natural. Water, Earth, Air. Feel it. Be natural, be bare, be true, be purely you! Live in the light! ~Amor Milagre
Wild rose petals soothe the body and mind, unwind headaches, and heal the skin. The sweet scent is entirely beneficial for the soul.
A simple circle of Nature’s stones and organic compost makes magic in your garden and soul. Let the glorious rain wash and nurture perennial wildflower seeds to surprise next season’s bees, while organic herbs sprout in the meantime, for little ones to taste on misty morning walks. Temporary or permanent, to grow in beauty, this easy-to-design garden is a delight for the senses outside and seen from inside the home, too. A little film to match below. ~Amor Milagre PS Gardening ideas are also woven into my original children’s books!
How To: Place a stick or garden stake at the center of where you want your garden. Tie a string around it, and figure out how large of a circumference you’d like your garden to be. Measure the radius amount and wrap that length of the string to another stick. Trace the circle on the ground in the dirt or mark with stones. This is a quick, natural, non-toxic way to mark out a garden. You can insert more sticks/stakes to vertically visualize your circle garden, connecting with string, or start laying stones down in a circle. Add organic compost and plant seeds and plants. Et voila! Let the rain help your plants grow very strong. Water new plants in, and later water if really needed, but Nature knows best and grows best with natural rain rhythms. Use saved rainwater in barrels and homemade organic compost for best results and ethical gardening practices. Enjoy your blooms and edible organic foods every year. This makes a beautiful winter garden structure as well. You can build up the stones as high or thick as you like. Ours is temporary so it is simply laid out. Use garden stones, because they already live there and look more natural with plants.
Nature’s colours, shapes, and textures are varied and are all the more beautiful for it, humans included. A great lesson for designing or appreciating anything/anyone: natural, healthy, and unique. More organic Home & Garden how to’s are featured in my upcoming ethical, healthy, organic lifestyle books.
Music of the Moment: Sunny, Marvin Gaye (Song written by Bobby Hebb)
Tools are everywhere. From your hands, feet, mind, heart, soul, expressions, and body to your hat, spoons, musical instruments, food, sun, moon, and pencils, everything is a tool to help us inspire positivity. Every room in our home stores our favourite tools. In the kitchen, a wooden spoon is always there, ready to use. Screwdrivers and hammers dot the basement as we finish a room. Paint brushes dry out by the sink, while lamps await our touch so they can shine their light for us. Notebooks excitedly lay and turn pages for new stories and friends to be invented. Hats shade our eyes, as we walk in the deer tracks in the snow, meditating in nature. What are your favourite tools?
In the kitchen: the wooden spoon, a sharp knife, fresh food, and a favourite pot. When you have favourites, you don’t need anything else. Everything in our home is our favourite. Minimal belongings help us to be organized, uncluttered, and serene. Old things are mended or sold, donated, or given as a gift to someone who sees it as their favourite.
Gravity is a great tool when paired with some great techniques. A twist in the hand, and you have fresh, ripe fruit. Wild ones eat fallen fruit, seeds, nuts, and plants. The wind spreads seeds everywhere as a wonderful transportation system/ride. Nature works together, and we try to have the things in our home work together with us, respecting nature. We make as much as we can by hand. This has been a goal of mine since birth. I always wanted to learn how to make everything.
Babies learn to use natural tools such as their voice, energy, and body. If we teach them gently, they will live, think, and love gently, too.
So many tools to help us do what we like. Umbrellas, for baby and me, take us on a tour of a world under water droplets and reflective light. When paired with natural rubber rain boots, a grand adventure is upon us. Saved and stored foods bide us time to cook with all year long. With our tools come the processes, and then the results, adapting to our ever changing tastes.
Scissors snip hair to keep healthy habits fresh. Sconces shine sweetly on a dimmer sweet on the eyes, not too often on cloudy days, as I paint starry skies and ocean waves.
Just like choosing fresh ingredients for baking and cooking, tools must fulfill their destined purpose, function, ergonomics, and feel good to use. A tool that gives you splinters needs the help of another tool to smooth it out, making it safe for your hands. This gentle mending can be applied to everything from relationships to learning new things. If you’re stuck, try something else. Light and shade, in balance, are healthy for the nervous system and for good rest, following Nature’s clock.
From paint brushes and chisels to pencils, we use a large number of tools every day. We take care of our tools so they work for us for a very long time. Then they can be passed on to work for others, too.
Colours colours everywhere! I use art and design as a tool to work with moods and emotions. I arrange artwork to create a feeling for each space. Wallpaper and bedding. Interiors & exteriors. Garden plant design. Children’s book nursery illustrations. Custom house paint colours. Mixing colours is a large part of what I do. These primary coloured watercolour paints were found on a trip to Hungary at one of the last remaining pigment mills that uses water power. Good craftsmanship for any tool lends ease of use. I only have to use a tiny bit of these colours to mix extraordinary hues. A knife that is sharp slices a tomato gently and nicely. It’s not crushed and the user is not strained. Take care of your tools so they take care of you. Ergonomics are important, especially for constant use. How is your body aligned when using your favourite tools?
To read more about our favourite tools and organization for a beautiful day, please check back for our upcoming lifestyle and design books. Our book collection is coming very soon. I source responsible paper and materials. All books are made to order and handmade with love and care by me. I sign each book and can write custom messages to your dear ones. More on this soon!
A little film about some of our favourite tools, Part 2 Natural Beauty.
