Cure for Cabin Fever

Daydreaming about spring and summer!

A Simple Life

This Etsy Maine Team treasury celebrates Maine's artisans and simple life.

Sunday dinner

Let me start off by saying I'm a huge advocate of local food. I happily brave snow and cold to attend my local farmers market. I spend my winter working my way through a 100lb bag of potatoes without complaint. But as spring draws closer my taste buds crave something a little more exotic. So I bought non-local ginger, scallions, and napa cabbage and set about the time consuming but worth while task of making steamed dumplings. Many hours later with wrappers rolled, veggies minced, and edges crimped
my taste buds woke up.

-Christina

Madder Root Seconds

Every Friday, we list "seconds" in our shop. Our tea towels and napkins are hand printed, so, sometimes, the image we are printing comes out a little lighter than we like. Sometimes, small pinhole sized dots open up on the screen and the ink leaks through in places we don't want it. Occasionally, the linen might have dark lines of flax in the fabric we find distracting or the linen itself may have a spot of dirt on it that disqualifies it from being a "first."

We keep our standards high. Everything else about the tea towel or napkin is first rate (the sewing and packaging), but we set these products aside and offer them to you at a discount on Fridays. Any blemishes on the tea towels or napkins are noted in the description.

To find these products, look for the "Seconds" section of our shop.

Also, a reminder that facebook friends may use their coupon code this month to receive a 10% discount on their entire Madder Root order. To sign up to become a facebook fan and find the coupon code, please click here.

New Tea Towel Design: Mason Jars

We love everything kitchen, so we thought we'd add mason jars to our collection this year. They're up in our Etsy shop and ready to be enjoyed!

UMaine Alumni Online Auction

Our Mussels kitchen set of two tea towels and four matching napkins is just one of the many items up for bid to benefit UMaine Alumni Association. This set has a value of $65 and bidding starts at $23. We'd tell you that you can also pick from Black Dinah chocolates, but we want those for ourselves (mwaaahaahaa). Other cool items include jewelry, baskets, trips, natural pet treats and more! The bidding started February 15 and goes through March 31, 2011. Hope you will join in the fun! For more information about the UMaine Alumni Auction, click here.

Dirt! The Movie

In all seriousness, I highly recommend you watch Dirt! The Movie. It will change the way you view dirt. I particularly love the hummingbird story told by Wangari Maathai. The Dirt website has tips on what you can do to save the dirt in your area. I've ordered the book from the library. Can't wait to read it!

Cheers!--Janyce