The Creative Salad – Page 38 – Crafty fun and homeschool adventures in Sonoma County, California.

Modern Landscape Architecture in Venice, California

One morning on our trip to Southern California we needed to kill time before lunch and decided to go for a family walk. We found ourselves in a quirky, well-kept neighborhood in Venice, California. Navigating up and down the streets, I came to appreciate why people love living in LA. Those small quiet neighborhoods are delightful!

Here are some of the architectural highlights from our walk:

I love those modern fences. (Oh, I almost want to pin each shot!) I look forward to the day we own a house and can duplicate that top fence. We’ll bring a little LA to Western Sonoma County.

A Blog Pause

After a super-fun, whirlwind trip to southern California it appears I need to take a bit of a break to rest and recover.

We’ll see you back here… soon!

Make Your Own All-Natural Essential Oil Air Freshener

We make a simple, non-toxic, inexpensive essential oil spray for our bathrooms as an alternative to chemical-laced air freshener.

First gather a 4 oz spray bottle (we reuse an empty deodorant spray bottle!) and the essential oil of your choice. We purchase a locally-made, organic product from the Simplers Botanical Company, but any essential oil should suffice. I particularly like the lavender oil in an air spray, but I imagine that rose or jasmine would be rather lovely as well.

Place 10-30 drops into your spray bottle, then fill the bottle with water.

Do a test spray or two to see if you need to add more essential oil.

Voila! Spray to your hearts content. (Oh, our daughter particularly loves “the spray!”)

Diversifying Our Cookbook Collection

Being a vegetarian for over two decades means I have amassed a fantastic vegetarian cookbook collection:

The downside to this is that we own very few cookbooks that actually contain meat recipes.

That’s been okay until now though because I have a confession to make: I may have been eating meat over the past two months, but I haven’t actually cooked any meat yet. Two close friends have made me bone broth that I’ve incorporated into recipes, but other than that I’ve been eating out every other day or so to get my meat ration.

So I figure it’s high time to get my elbows dirty and cook meat. To do that, I feel the need to invest in some scrumptious meat-heavy cookbooks for inspiration in the kitchen. I’ve checked some great ones out of the library and plan to slowly buy some for us to own from our local used bookstore.

I need your help. What are your favorite cookbooks that I need to check out?

In the meantime, here are some recipes I want to try:

Pasta and Easy Italian Meat Sauce from Everyday Food: Great Food Fast by Martha Stewart Living Magazine and

Venetian Lasagne from Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home by Nigella Lawson (love her! I’ve so been enjoying this latest book).

Now the question remains, will I have the guts to cook meat or will I cry all over the dish?! We shall see.

More Easy Bathroom Upgrades

I feel like I’m finally a grown-up.

We now own a waste-bin (lined with a compostable bag):

instead of re-using a paper bag for the trash:

We also pitched our plastic soap dispensers:

in favor of rather fancy soap dispensers from Anthropologie:

While the rosemary mint soap is rather lovely, I’m less than thrilled about the rust stains from the “Pure and Good” vintage-inspired wire basket:

Yes, the rust wipes away, but, Anthropologie, I know you can do better.

Nevertheless, I’m still happy with those scalloped glass hand pumps. When the Anthropologie soap runs out we’re going to refill the pumps with our favorite peppermint soap by Dr. Bronner’s (much less drying for our hands, not to mention incredibly less expensive than the Anthropologie one since we water down the Bronner’s).

Like the rollerball shower curtain rings we added in January, a few simple upgrades make our bathroom look so much better.

Too bad we’re renters or I’d redo the whole room. That being said, I have more plans up my sleeve. Now to find the time to implement them. Stay tuned…