she's not in kindergarten anymore...

...it's on to first grade now and she is excited to move up and on

au revoir Madame & Ms. and merci for a wonderful first school year

I feel like it was only yesterday when I wrote this post but a whole school year has come and gone. The time certainly goes by so fast especially when I reflect on all the things that have happened to us as a family and to each of us individually. My sweet girl has grown and learned so much in the past several months and we are so proud of her.

Tres Bien petite fille!

:: BIENVENUE summertime ::

it's coming together

little by little

it is all coming together

a comfy home to nurture our creativity and grow

little by little

slowly but surely

I think I need to lower that pic on the right just a tiny bit

a backyard fence soon...

a salvaged door compliments of the curb

babies for our babies

more of our home here, here, here

bottling nature...

L'Atelier Naturel :: embracing the divine secrets of nature

My sweet hubby and I are combining forces in 'the natural workshop'

We have recently been experimenting with the essence of nature and essential oils. Lately, my hubby enjoys urban harvesting Gardenia and Magnolia flowers to experiment with extracting their essence. He has also successfully distilled Cypress, Rosemary and even our Christmas tree from this past year to create beautiful hydrosols aka floral waters aka essential waters. He uses a beautiful copper still and is inspired by age old techniques.

I enjoy combining the oils and the essential waters to see what original essence I can come up with. So far our original collection includes three 5 oz essential water spritzers that can also be sold as oil only available in 2 ml or 5 ml bottles, as picutured above. We are still deciding on and designing our labels. I am trying to get some good photos to represent our collection.

Cypress Rose :: our homemade Cypress essential water with Turkish Rose

Rozalyn :: our homemade Magnolia and Cypress essential waters accented with oil of Gardenia, Vanilla, and Amber

Kaya's Delight :: this one was inspired by our 6 year old daughter who decided that the oils of Peppermint, Rose, and Lavender would go beautifully together and she was right. Combining equal parts of each oil to purified water and/or Rosemary essential water.

These essential waters work great as a body or home spray. Spray your sheets to freshen things up a bit, on a hot day you can spray a little Kaya's Delight on your face for a mid- day freshner or just wear as your daily perfume.

:: and always remember to SHAKE WELL AND SPRAY OFTEN ::

We are hoping to have our original collection available online sometime very soon...

...until then please feel free to contact me with any curiosities you may have at bayoubohemian@gmail.com

es'scent'ial lockets

bird & locket

leather & feather

feather & locket

Geez...I have updated 3 items to my shop and funny enough it took me a day and a half. There are many more items I would like to offer there but it takes me so... long to create, photograph, edit, upload and write about each item. And honestly, I am not quite yet satisfied with my photographs but I will continue to experiment and grow. I do hope to update more often and hopefully will succeed with that soon, as it has been an ongoing interest of mine.

But to say a few things about my recent update...

They are 'essential locket' necklaces. A locket that holds a scent, an inspiration from similar lockets worn in the 1920's. It is a great way for me to combine my current workings with essential oils with my long time interest of creating jewelry. They way it works is quite simple, you take about a 1/4 of a cotton ball and place it in the locket and drop 1 to 2 drops of your favorite scent then close locket and the essence is released through the filligree...easy as that.

We also have from 2ml to 15ml therapeutic essential oils available for sale.

:: adorn thyself with scent ::

hmm...

Ok...this would be perfect for a 'sunday random thought' post but I just could not wait. I just found it here and wanted to share it immediately! Very well put...

Lately...

a special blend of essential oils of gardenia, vanilla and amber

added to urban harvested magnolia and cypress essential water

:: Magnolia and Cypress harvested and distilled by my hubby...HOMEmade ::

:: paint and old wood = create ::

:: fun with the sun ::

:: in our garden ::

feathers on friends ::