Etsy and Homesteading

I am so totally addicted to Etsy. What am I buying? Everything...that's the problem..haha! For those of you who have never heard of it, Etsy is a global website that sells all hand made items, vintage items or supplies to make hand made items.

Today I bought a vintage coffee percolator exactly like my grandparents used to have. I've been reading a lot of homesteading books lately, and when I read Made From Scratch by Jenna Woginrich (check out her awesome blog at http://coldantlerfarm.blogspot.ca/) and she talked about her love of coffee in the percolator, I knew I just had to find one. And yes, just like everything else in life, coffee is indeed better with chocolate.

I just also finished reading Farm City by Novella Carpenter (http://ghosttownfarm.wordpress.com/). I really liked the parts about the gardening and community, but no so much about the animals for food parts. Cool fact - you can even see the exact corner of her garden and house on Google Maps. Yea, I'm a geek.

So back to shopping. I have been searching high and low for good mint soap. I bought many bars with no luck. Mint soaps should smell like mint, right? I guess not everyone agrees. Until I found this shop that sells the best mint soap in the world (in my humble opinion). I'm on my second batch now and the Rosemary Mint is soooo good (https://www.etsy.com/shop/lingerbathandbody). I also like the Spearmint Eucalyptus, which isn't as strong, but great for the laundry room sink. Bonus, its also pretty. :-)

Some other things I have ordered were cleaners to clean out my reusable straws for my travel cups, a set of beautiful wooden coffee spoons, a handmade canvass purse, many necklaces, seeds (I have my "travelers tomatoes" started in the sunroom now), bath melts and so on. I have looking at a spice rack that matches the dutch pattern on my Nan's recipe box perfectly, but it is $70. I can't bring myself to pay that for an one foot spice rack, no matter how much I like it. Oh well. I can still look at it and drool. They also have a matching tray. Danger danger! LOL.

And thanks to all the reading I have been doing about homesteading lately, I have developed a fetish for roosters. Another thing to drool over. And since my love of any and all things French, I actually found a set of rooster mugs from France. Just my luck. They are actually more in my budget, so I may have them ordered by the end of the week. Oh boy. Good thing I will be in Houston next week and will be too busy to shop ...well at least online. ;-)