Pooka Post: Homecoming

Today, just a bit of writing:
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Shadow Grove was beautiful as always. The weather was gorgeous and the trees in the area shaded my cottage from the sun, making the day even nicer. Shadow Grove was home, no matter where Mab's whims sent me I could always return to Faerie and to the home of my heart.

I looked down to the roses that lined the front wall of the cottage, they were every color imaginable and dappled with the spots of sunlight that escaped from the leaves of the trees overhead. Some of the roses had come from the mortal realms and others yet came from Faerie itself. The trees around the cottage whispered in the breeze and I tilted my head back to listen to their song.

"You're home!" I heard his cheerful cry before he threw himself at me. I had to laugh as I gathered the canine creature into my arms. He looked like a mortal dog, a terrier to be exact. In truth neither of us knew what he really was.

"I've missed you too, Tobias." I scratched behind his ears and let him back down to the ground. I would joke how much of a mutt he was, we sometimes would sit in the gardens and try to figure out exactly what mix of fae was in his blood. It was our game.

He guarded Shadow Grove while I was away and he was my best friend no matter what court politics were underfoot.

"I see the roses are all in bloom." I commented and he padded over to inspect them.

"They weren't yesterday, they must have known you were coming back." His words made me get that happy warm feeling that so many mortals would talk about, I laughed.

"Must be. Come on, let's go inside... I have so many things to tell you about my adventures this time." As I walked towards the door of the cottage I couldn't help but whisper a word of thanks to anyone that would listen.

I was home.

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Just a smattering of the life of a Pooka Fae when not in the mortal realms. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it!

Tea Review - Ashby's of London: Cinnamon Plum Tea

Blend Name: Cinnamon Plum Tea

What the company says: Flavored with fresh ground cinnamon and the rich essence of plum.


Sweetener Used: None
Milk Used: None

Steeping Time: 4 minutes

Overall Opinion: The smell of this tea threw me off. Too sweet for my personal tastes and it reminded me of a pie or something similar. I couldn't smell the cinnamon or the plum, just sweet. The first taste yielded a tea too sweet for my palate, even without sweetener. I admit that I only tried one more sip before giving up, this blend just isn't my thing.

Shiny Bits Thursday!

Yet another post of shiny bits! These are shops that I love, mostly from etsy.

Fairy Folk

Needlefelting awesomeness. Seriously, have you ever seen such cute toadstools? They also have felted acorns, which are just gorgeous.

Beadfreaky

Gorgeous, stunning porcelain buttons that I drool over. 

Emergent Glassworks

Okay really, who can live without octoplode earrings!? And they have octoplode hairsticks and all of these neat things. (Octoplode = Octopus) 

Bread and Badger

Awesome glasses. Seriously. Go look.

So there they are! The shiny bits I'm currently loving! 

Tea Review - The Tea Table: Lychee Congou

Blend Name: Lychee (Lichee) Congou

What the company says: "Lichee Congou tea is made by combining fine China black tea with the exotic taste of lichee fruit, which adds an amazing fragrance and and natural sweetness. This tea is great hot, but just stunning as iced tea! Also great blended with either Earl Grey or Jasmine Yin Hao, then serve over ice."

Sweetener Used: None
Milk Used: None

Steeping Time: 3 minutes

Overall Opinion: I love Lychee, I have to say that first. This of course means that I had high hopes when trying this tea. The smell of the tea (in the tin) was really great. Very much the lychee I was hoping for. After steeping and the first sip, I found that the black tea is not overpowering at all. The lychee flavor is still very strong after brewing. The tea itself felt more like a green tea to me, most likely because I went for 3 minutes and not the full 5 that they tend to allow.
Even cold the tea is very light and flavorful.

Tea Review - Fae Inspired: Sunshine Honey Lavender

So here I am, you all know that I Love Tea. Like, adore it beyond anything (well almost anything, see: glitter and keys.)
I'm going to start a weekly tea review, or at least try to make it weekly. Tuesday nights to be exact.

I'll be reviewing any tea that I buy or any tea that shows up at my house. (This may or may not be a hint.)

This week is a tea blend from one of my favorite tea shops. Fae Inspired (aka Faerie Tea).

Blend Name: Sunshine Honey Lavender


Sweetener Used: None
Milk Used: None

Steeping Time: 4 minutes

Overall Opinion: At first smell while steeping this blend is a very strong lavender, I was afraid that the blend itself would taste strongly of lavender as well but I was very pleased to find it was just right. The lavender is not overpowering at all, and I for one am not a huge lavender fan. The aftertaste is reminiscent of a Japanese rice candy.
This would be a very good before bed tea if the drinker was not susceptible to caffeine, otherwise I would suggest the Rooibus Honey Lavender tea.

How it's done

If you've been following my blog you might have seen photos of glass beads and comments that I make glass beads.

This post is to show you a bit of the behind the scenes stuff. I took some photos while working yesterday, and I'm going to share them with you.

Let's get started, shall we?

This, is my workbench. Yep, where all the glassy magic happens. Its not usually any cleaner than what you see here.

And apparently I've started collecting cute things to go on top of my ventilation hood. I'm okay with this fact. Right now I have a turtle and two pirate duckies with an old fashioned coke bottle behind them. This collection may grow.

This is my kiln. This is really where all of the magic happens. When I'm done with a bead I pop it into the kiln (960 degrees! or 954 in this case, it'll get there.) and the kiln will control the cooling process at roughly 400 degrees an hour so the beads don't stress fracture.

This is my glass. I have a lot of colors, but I also have room for a lot more. I work with 104 coe glass, coe is the Coefficient of Expansion. It's pretty awesome but I won't bore you. :)

All of these things allow me to make works of art like:

Where have the days gone?

It's December.

Seriously. Where did the time go?

I find that the tree has gone up, the lights are on the houses... and there are presents being wrapped. Have I mentioned that's my favorite thing to do? I LOVE wrapping presents! All of the choices make me SO HAPPY. I mean really, the greens, the candy cane print... I love it all!

(Yes, these are actually presents that are under the tree over here.)

Along with wrapping presents, and shipping presents I find myself at the torch a ton more than normal. Today I took more beads over to The Peacock Shop. Lots of Triton beads, which I am very excited about. Triton is like Clio, only blue. (Don't know what Clio looks like? See this post)

I'll probably get a photo of all of the new goodies soon though, until then I have lots of new beads up on etsy.

So, tell me. What is your favorite part of the holidays?