South Austin Urban Farmers Market

We had a lovely time with Robin and the other south Austin vendors this Saturday at 5109 Manchaca - a lovely, treed front yard just north of Fair Oaks. We hope to be sporadic regulars to this venue, and are applying to the Cherrywood Market happening in early December.

It was really great to bring our projects out to the open air and get responses from the public.

I would also like to make my soap, salts, and hair rinses available for online orders - pick up locally, or pay a little extra for shipping (within the usa). I'm working on a banner link for the side of this blog to make ordering easy - for now click the 'contact me' at the top of the page and let me know what you would like to order. Currently in stock:

• Herbal hair rinse, 3 blends - all natural with homegrown, organic herbs to sooth and beautify your scalp and hair   $8 - 8 oz
• Growth
• Shine
• Dandruff relief
• Aromatic bath salts   $6 - 10 oz

• Lemongrass/Rosemary for an invigorating bath (or foot soak)
• Lavender/Jasmine for a relaxing bath (or foot soak)
• Castile soap with soothing oats, calendula oil, and lemongrass essential oil (among other delightful ingredients)  $4.50 - 4 oz bars

My next batch of soap will be a shea butter soap with lavender essential oil, followed by another castile soap with tea tree and perhaps sandalwood. Feel free to email me at any time to see what i have in stock! And of course, thanks for supporting your local (or not so local as the case may be) gardener and budding herbalist!

Found: A great Austin resource

On developing the packaging for my newest venture, i searched the entirety of at least 3 stores on the quest of recycled fiber cardstock.
To no avail.
But a friendly salesperson at OfficeMax (or someother such cookiecutter store) recommended a store up on Cesar Chavez street called "OK Paper." I did a google search when i got home and discovered a super wonderful resource, a mere 10 minutes up the road from my house!
O-K paper is a branch of Olmsted-Kirk Paper Company, a business that appears to focus on responsibly harvested and manufactured paper products. Oh, how i wish i'd known of this place two years ago!

(Little back story: my husband and i got married last June, and i designed and put together all the invitations myself. I wanted to have low environmental impact, so i ordered a sheaf of paper from the Neenah Paper Company that contained entirely recycled content. It was gorgeous paper, but sure cost a lot to buy and have shipped. And what do i do with this entire sheaf, you may ask? We only invited 50 or so folks.... Well, i printed ALL the wedding invitations after much careful scrutiny- only to have my then fiance look at one and point out a typo. Dang. So i fix the file and print them ALL out again. Only to notice myself that i'd put 2008 on them instead of 2009. IDIOT! So three batches of invitations later, there is no paper left. Alas)

 So, I may not have that pretty paper leftover, but i've discovered a great company right here in Austin that sells the stuff - so i stopped into their storefront, that is much like a factory warehouse adjacent to a bunch of construction (ah, Austin). I picked up three sheafs: brown cardstock for business cards and hangtags, cream paper for soap wrappers, and some regular old printer paper for every day use. The total wasn't pretty, a whopping $39. But if i can avoid printing everything three times, i think it should last us!

What is your favorite local shop for basic supplies that meet your moral shopping guidelines?