Waving Hello from Long Island

I’m Geri from New York Attitude. It’s an honor to be hanging out with such skilled artisans of scent, texture, and taste, as well as students and teachers of herbal medicine.

Although I’ve been passionate about trying to capture the universe in various media since I was a girl, it seems that I’ve awakened to actually living in only the past few years. Something happened—a personal renaissance of sorts—that now leaves me breathlessly exploring a dizzying variety of creative avenues, all as quickly as possible.

One of my earliest loves was fragrance. Perhaps you, too, had that moment as a child when you discovered that soap didn’t have to be white, wrapped in commercial paper, and always the same scent. The first time I opened a box of rose-fragranced guest soaps, I swore I’d never go back to the supermarket stuff. And of course, I needed to sample all the types there were … and then learn how to make them. Finally, my family informed me we were not going to be able to finish all the bars I produced, not even in a lifetime per family member, and would I please stop producing it. So I did the only sane thing—I decided to sell it! I make only what I would want to use, with the highest-quality ingredients I can find. Recently I’ve been leaning toward creating mostly essential oil soaps, but I still love blended fragrance oils and will never leave them. You can see a variety of what I’ve got at my new shop.

There’s a new obsession in my life: fibers! Last summer, I learned to spin on a wheel and began to buy lots of pretty handpainted fibers. Of course, I needed to sample all the types there were … and then learn how to make them. Yup, I’m drowning in fiber! So my little shop now offers handpainted rovings and batts for the spinning wheel enthusiast.

Best of all, I get to write for Tina at The Essential Herbal Magazine … and she doesn’t even charge me for it! It’s fun being the Suburban Herbie, commenting on herbal life in the burbs. So far, nobody has complained about my ramblings, which leads me to think I’ll be able to get away with a couple more in the upcoming issues.

Geri
http://www.newyorkattitude.etsy.com/
http://whimsylane.blogspot.com/