Basil-Green Tea

I've been on a chai making kick lately. As I was thinning out my baby basil plants today, I thought it would make a good tea. There aren't many recipes out there, so here you go:

6-10 basil mature leaves

2-6 2" high basil plants (or a half dozen leaves off a mature plant)

4-6 whole cloves

1-2 cinnamon sticks

2 bay leaves

1 teaspoon gunpowder green tea

Steep 4-5 minutes. Shorter is very mild and good. If you leave it too long the cloves start to take over. I sip little bits as it steeps to test.

 It doesn't need sugar, but I suspect it would be good with a little fresh lemon juice and/or honey. 

printing Christmas cards

I printed Christmas cards today. You can see the woodcut I used on the left. It's a crest from a book on my mother's family genealogy. I use a brayer with block printing ink, though I think you can use a horsehair brush. The base piece of wood is maple, part of the top of a coffee table I found in a dumpster. I used some pellon felts from papermaking (used for drying). I found in the past that the woodcut isn't perfectly flat, so the backing helps a lot. 

I made marks on the paper to position the paper and woodcut, then just press the woodcut in. The felt helps form the image. I used to rock the woodcut back and forth on the paper, but this seems to work much better. 

I've been contemplating a more involved system, e.g. attaching woodcuts together using erector set parts. I have metal rods leftover from another project, so I plan to attach one to one edge of the wooden board, to form a hinge, then I can open up the stamps (imagine the top of a scanner opening). I think if I do it right, I can mix different stamp materials (e.g. copper plates and woodcuts), and put some pressure on top.

glassblowing

I've set up a separate blog to discuss local classes. I just put up a couple pictures from a glassblowing class I took over Thanksgiving week if anyone is interested.

Free oriental rug

I stopped at a recycling dumpster to get some cardboard boxes, and found an oriental rug in the trash, 3'x4'. It still had a price tag on it, $55. It's a bit worn already, so I'm going to hang it up. I like the peacock.

Punched Tin Lantern

I posted an instructable here (did this for a Valentine's day present)

http://www.instructables.com/id/Punched-Tin-Lantern/

some assembly required

I got the PCBs for the reprap today. The Arduino came last week, so now it's time to start having fun. One of my neighbors let me use his tablesaw to make parts for the gantry (thanks!)

Look at them all!

Rochester Freecycle RSS

I set up an RSS feed for Rochester freecycle, so you don't have to deal with all the e-mails.

http://www.mailbucket.org/rochester-freecycle.xml