Hey there! This is my last post of 2016. That’s right, we survived the year. I hope your holiday was merry and bright. Now that Christmas is over it’s time to ring in a new year. When I think New Year’s Eve my first thought is bubbly! In the summer I began to experiment with homemade sodas. Now that I have perfected my technique I figured it was time to share it with you all. And if New Year’s Eve isn’t the perfect time for a homemade soda, I don't know when is. Ha. I made a classic cranberry soda this time around but to date I have made
So let me tell you how I did it. First, gather your ingredients. You will need:
For your flavouring, you can use as much or as little as you like. I only used 2 tbsp of lavender, and for the pear I used the cores of 3 pears I sliced up. You really just need to throw something in there to give it a little flavour. Our aim is to make a simple syrup to add to unflavoured, unsweetened soda water. First you throw all the ingredients in a saucepan. I would start with the water, then add the sugar and stir them until they are combined then splash in the vanilla and dump in your flavouring. The liquid will be cloudy and in my case will look like what is above. Allow this mixture to come to a boil, stirring occasionally. Then let it boil for 3 - 5 minutes. Remove it from the heat and allow it to cool. It should look something like the image above. Leave the mixture to cool for an hour. This time will allow the flavour to soak further into the mixture. After it has fully cooled strain out the flavouring ingredient so that what you’re left with is a thin syrup and a jelly of whatever your flavour is. This jelly can be saved and used for anything you like. The raspberry made a great jam to spread on toast while the cranberry conveniently gave me cranberry sauce for a turkey dinner. The syrup, however, is what we are interested in for the soda. Next, you will want to add the syrup to the soda, in order to do so you will need to remove liquid from the bottle equal to the amount of syrup you have. It should be about one glass worth. Then slowly pour the syrup into the soda being careful not to let the soda bubble over. Your optional final step is to create a cute label and replace the original label with your homemade one. I’ll attach my labels below if you would like to print them out and put them on your own sodas. Here is the bottle I designed for the pear. This one came with me to a baby shower so the label is a little cuter. The cranberry was for the holidays so I made it a little sleeker, but you can design yours however you like! Just be sure to print it on an 11 x 17 so that is is long enough to wrap all the way around the bottle. Approximately 5 inches by 15 inches is the right size for a standard soda bottle. And there you have it: the perfect homemade soda for any occasion. This, for sure, is one recipe that will be coming back up in the summer. I hope you ring in your new year with something delicious and bubbly. You could also add this syrup to something alcoholic if you so desire or mix the soda with your favourite liquor. But most importantly bubbly drinks are celebratory and we are celebrating! We are celebrating a chance to start anew. Now of course this chance doesn’t come only once a year, it comes every single day, but New Year’s Day is a day we have decided to practice this idea together. So let’s join together and start fresh! New joy, new peace, new motivation, new determination, new acceptance, and new love. Let’s start anew, and let it be a celebration! So here’s to you and to new. I hope you find new grace, truth, and hope this year. Truly. Tasia. Tell me in the comments below what you're hoping to have anew in this new year.
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Well here we are, exactly one week out from Christmas. I love this time of year more than I love the actual day but I thought I’d take today to talk about a few of my favourite and longest standing Christmas traditions. In my opinion, the best traditions are the strangest ones because that is what makes them unique to your family. My family has plenty of unique traditions but possibly our longest running tradition is a mini family reunion. Every Christmas Eve we gather at a relative’s house (it would switch houses every few years or so) and anyone under my mother’s mother’s mother (my maternal great-grandmother) in the family tree is welcome. Some years hundreds of people cram into a single home. These parties are always loud, drunken parties that inevitably include at least one fight, plenty of food, and good ol’ fashion family fun. Although these nights are crazy, they started before I was born and are the most prominent Christmas memories I have. I will be thinking about these bashes when I am old and grey, and for that I am forever grateful. Each year at these gatherings my family ends the night with a round of totally off-key Christmas carols. We belt out five, six, seven, or more songs that someone decided we need to. As my ears bleed, I would always realize how special it was to have so much family full of so much joy and a strong sense of tradition. Then around 11 or 11:30 my immediate family would head back to my grandparents’ house, us kids would get in our jammies just in time for midnight when we would sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to my grandpa. My grandpa was born on December 25th and in order to not get lost in the Christmas day bustle we celebrate him after Christmas Eve is over but before Christmas day arrives. These special nights became quiet celebrations all about him. When I was in elementary school I memorized my grandpa’s favourite poem and recited it to him, and every year since we read/recite The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert W. Service illustrated by Ted Harrison. My grandpa is from the Yukon and the book and illustrations remind him of home. And now, for me, this special tradition reminds me of where I came from, of a heritage I did not live, but now get to participate in. As I grew older these celebrations of my grandfather became filled with stories of the north and his side of the family. This particular tradition has become my absolute favourite, and Christmas Eve doesn’t feel complete without the reading of The Cremation of Sam McGee. And now to Christmas morning. It began just late enough for all the adults to have a cup of coffee in hand before we got rolling. To push back the festivities as much as possible the children were distracted with the task of pulling all the presents out from under the tree and creating piles for each person around the room. Ever since my very first Christmas pictured above, my spot was in front of fireplace, warm and cozy. Then, to buy the adults a little more time the kids began by opening stockings first. Then once all the big people were settled the free-for-all of gift opening began with no order or organization. We chaotically yell ‘thank you’s across the room and show off new gifts. Once all the gifts have been opened we sit down to a family brunch of Eggs Benedict. This brunch is still one of my favourites and Christmas day feels incomplete without it. The rest of the day is lazy and cozy. Sometime in the afternoon I will change out of my pyjamas and into nice clothes for Christmas dinner. A few more relatives with join us at my grandparents for a huge and delicious meal that includes untraditional traditional dishes such as cabbage rolls with sour cream and a dish of pickles and pickled beets. My grandma will burn at least one dish and completely forget about another. Christmas night we will go to bed full and happy. Our eating does not end Christmas Day though. Another odd tradition we have is our Boxing Day seafood feast. At lunch on Boxing Day my uncle would prepare a giant meal of seafood for us all and we would eat all manner of garlic butter covered deliciousness.
Some of our traditions are zany while others seem quite normal but the best part is they are ours. Traditions root us in a heritage and connect us to our past. They are the moments we appreciate where we come from and help guide us to where we are going. They are the North Star that delivers us to the love and joy and special moments of the season. They invite us to participate in the giving and not just the consumerism or the receiving. After all, Christmas really is nothing more than a tradition we all agreed to continue. I hope your Christmas is untraditionally traditional, and as special and zany as a king born in a stable. Keep the tradition alive. Truly. Tasia. Tell me about your wackiest Christmas traditions in the comments below! Well it’s mid-December, yes, that’s right, no, I’m not kidding. Two weeks until Christmas to the day! I hope your season has been merry and bright and I hope you have your gifts ready to be wrapped because today I’m going to show you a few ways to make cute wrapping paper all with brown kraft paper. This is a fun activity for adults and kids alike. Here are a few reasons you should use brown paper this Christmas:
Ok, let’s get this DIY started. Things you are going to need for sure: brown paper and scissors. Things you are going to need for our first DIY wrapping paper: stamps and ink of your choosing. Why not pull out your favourite stamp and personalize your paper? You could be methodical and create a clean and sophisticated look. Or you could do something totally random. Both are equally valid and equally beautiful. If you have a gift in mind for this particular wrapping paper it may be easier to cut out the piece you need first and then stamp it to avoid wasting your efforts on paper you wont use. If stamps and ink seem like too much for you just grab yourself a marker any colour you want. I, of course, chose simply black. Go ahead and draw whatever you darn well please on that paper. Maybe you even add a festive message. Maybe all you add are festive messages. Either way once wrapped around a box it’ll all look fun. For this third method dig out the glitter and glue for a sparkly Christmas.
Wrap your package up and tie a bow around it! Look how snazzy it looks. You can put as many or as few glitter smears as you like. I went quite sparse here but both look great. Finally, for the easiest idea of all you don’t have to do a darn thing to the paper. Use it totally plain with some fun tape. Clear tape is good for regular wrapping, double sided is good for clean-looking wrapping, and the fun tape is good for jazzing up a plain package.
It doesn’t take much to make brown paper look great. Tie it up with ribbons or bows or even just string or yarn looks pretty. And something about having all those brown paper packages under your tree feels so homey and cozy. Save your wallet, save the environment, and go brown this year. I wish you all the joy of the season. Truly. Tasia. |
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AuthorTasia Craig recently graduated from Dalhousie's School of Architecture with a Bachelor of Environmental Design Studies and now hopes to showcase her design work on her very first blog. She is currently living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Archives
June 2017
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