Rose Water and Cherry Medicine Cabinets

So my beautiful roses smelled so wonderful, I googled how to make my own rosewater. Not sure what I will do with it, but for now, I have experimented and made rosewater. I made my own "still" to distill the rose water. It was quite simple....

You place a ramekin upside down inside this pot. Then place a soup bowl on top of the ramekin. Add your rose petals and water till it is halfway up the ramekin. Put a stainless steel bowl on top as a lid.

Fill bowl with ice. As you boil the rose petals, the steam will hit the icy bowl and condensation will fill the soup bowl with water. 

Filled soup bowl.

Didn't want to toss the water the petals were in, so I strained them. One method said to use this still for 3-4 hours, but I wasn't interested in getting that much, nor did I have that many rose petals. I steeped for 15-20 minutes, and got a bowl full of distilled rose water.

Added the distilled and strained waters, and this is my almost quart of rose water. 

Thank you lovely rose.

As I was making rose water, and Wyatt was ACTUALLY napping, Jay has been working on his cherry medicine cabinet for the downstairs bathroom. See the following. He is currently working on the door. More photos as he completes this project. 

The New Hive

Jay has been working very hard on finishing my second bee hive. It is going to Liz and Chris's house out in Caz, so we happened to have some red stain that would match their barns.

What We've Been Up To.

So, we haven't been doing a ton.....but here are some updates.

The new mite catching tray for our second top bar beehive

The new top bar beehive

frames for Steph's paintings

new curtains for Dining Room

My new drop spindle...this is not easy.

my hand washed wool - hoping to blend this with some alpaca to eventually spin with my new drop spindle

Uh Oh! Here we go again!

BEFORE

AFTER

And you guys thought we were done.....Just started stripping the woodwork in the living room. This time, we are doing a wall at a time.

finished coat rack!

It's finished and beautiful!

Jay's December/January Project

So my amazing husband (he reads this) has been spending his spare time building me a lovely craftsman style coat rack for the newly remodeled front entrance. It's pretty damn cool. Here are some photos. We stained it tonight. Eventually, we may purchase some tiles to put into the 3 squares. The coat hooks have been ordered and are on route.

Rugs!

We are slowly adding the finishing details to our house project....rugs! jay got me one for Christmas, a round wool rug for the dining room and Judy and Michael brought us back a Silk on silk Oriental rug for the upstairs hallway.