Preorder your Salve Trio Packs now!

It's been a busy whirlwind of a summer, but fall is here and Samhain approaches. That means that the frost of winter is licking at the ground.

I've gotten several requests to hold reservations of Summer Salve until we have all three samples in stock.  In response to that I've created Salve Trio Packs!

Preorder your Sample Pack!

Preorder your Full Sized Trio Pack!

Available in both 1/2 ounce sample and 2 ounce sizes, these are preorder packs and will ship after October 31st, once winter salve is out. The Sampler Pack is $11.25 and the Full Sized Trio Pack is $40.50.

While we don't have a listing for an 8 ounce Trio Pack, if you'd like one just let me know and I'd be happy to make a listing for you!

So How's Juniper?

Here's Ms Juniper keeping herself warm next to a CPU fan.

The next question I've gotten most often is how's Juniper doing?  I'm happy to report that she's doing GREAT.  She's totally healed up from her surgery, so we'll be looking at getting her a dental soon to take care of her dental disease. She had some persistent hard brick-red gunk by her eyes, but a diet of dye-free, grain-free food has cleared that up.

Perhaps best of all, while she's still petite, she's gained an entire half pound and is now a healthy weight.  Her coat, once coarse and fluffy, is still fluffy, but shines and is like touching a cloud. 

Tensions with the other cats have eased, and while she won't cuddle with the others, there's a lot less hissing and spitting. I'll be sure to get more photos soon of her.

Two Contests Ending Soon!

We have two wonderful contests with time left for you to partake in!  Please enter and spread the word to others!

Juniper's Custom Item Contest
All my sweet, dear customers know what a wait my custom order list can have and how I stopped doing custom creations about a year ago.  Now, for Juniper, I'll make whatever item the winner wants for 20 cents and will send it anywhere in the world for free.   Entering is easy!  All you need to do is donate to Juniper in any amount more than $5.  We're about two-thirds of the way to covering her current expenses and appreciate all the generous help! For a chance at winning you'll need to enter by June 30th!


Errant Knight Summer Solstice Quest for the Forest of Flidais

It's that time again where the NightBlooming Knights head out in search of a legendary item for a chance at winning a special prize! View the contest listing here.


•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*´¨)
(¸.•´ (¸A knight-errant is a figure of medieval chivalric romance literature. "Errant," meaning wandering or roving, indicating how the knight-errant would typically wander the land in search of adventures. NightBlooming has a quest for those that would dare to take it. Though a challenge, the reward is great!

As NightBlooming's signature style is well known to our customers, we're offering up this summertime hair stick as a reward for the one who can unravel this riddle! The answer lies within one of my sold items, so the better you know NightBlooming’s work, the easier this may be.

.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*´¨)
(¸.•´ (¸The Prize:

Flidais was the Celtic Goddess of the forest, woodlands, and wild things. She was a shapeshifter who rode in a deer-drawn chariot through the thick of the wild and was associated with protection of wild animals. Built upon a spiraling stick by Elvenhair, this stick is topped with an abalone shell, dyed and coated to be a shifting emerald green full of deep blacks. It is set into the stick and accented by twin band of silver wire. Sadly, the pictures utterly fail to capture the shifting beauty of the stone.

The Forest of Flidais Hair Stick has a usable length of up to 6 inches and a total length of 7.75 inches.


We'll do another quest for the Autumn Solstice! So even if you don't win please try again then :)


.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*´¨)
(¸.•´ (¸Rules:
Use the hint to find the right listing in my Sold Items, then look in the item description or photos to answer the question. The contest will run for a week (closing at 12am on Tuesday the 28th of June), and a winner will be randomly drawn from all those that submitted the right answer.

You are allowed only ONE GUESS and cannot amend your answer, so make your submission count! Please send me a CONVO with the your guess and a link to the listing you feel is correct. The winner will have the sticks shipped to them for free++ anywhere in the world!

Once the winner is announced they may check out with the sticks. Best of luck to you all!

You can see all the sold items here:
http://www.etsy.com/shop_sold.php?user_id=5131346


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.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*´¨)
(¸.•´ (¸The Quest

Your Hint:
...Such belief is reflected in the names Fairy Caps, Fairy Gloves, Fairy Thimbles, Fairy Herb, Fairybells, Fairy-fingers, Goblin Gloves, Fairy Petticoats, Fairyweed, or Folks' Gloves, the fairies being sometimes called merely Folks since to speak of them explicitly was believed to get their attention and cause them to do mischief. In Gaelic they were Lus Mor, the Great Herb, for being the most magical of all herbs.

This hair clip may just get you into your own bit of fairy mischief.

The Question:
Praytell, what type of plant twines itself across the front of this Ficcare?

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++Free shipping is via First Class USPS. If you would like a different shipping method or insurance, a small charge will apply.

Though the listing is for $0.20 as that is the lowest amount that Etsy will allow an item to be listed for, these fees will be covered by NightBlooming for the winner.

Juniper Updates & Contest- Any Custom Item you want up to $50

Juniper Updates

We are so, so grateful for each and every donation that has come in for Juniper!  We're nearly halfway to our goal for her, 38 individual people making donations totaling just over $700.  But we still have a long way to go.

Thankfully, she hasn't needed more medical care.  She seems to be totally healed from her traumatic experience, at least in body.  While Juniper is happy (so far as we can tell), she's still adjusting from going from an only cat into a house with five other furry roomates.  It's a big change for her, but she's making progress and will now eat treats sitting next to the others.

Juniper had never been outside, so one sunny day we took her outside to enjoy the sun and the breeze and the sky.  All of our cats are indoor cats, but they are allowed to go outside in our fenced yard under supervision.  We're very careful to watch them, especially Juniper.  All-white, deaf animals don't stand a chance in the wild.

To give her a sense of security we brought her out in a carrier to let her take in the sights and smells and when she started getting antsy to get out, we opened the carrier door and let her explore.

Tenative at first, she took in all these new sensations- the dry feel of bare earth, the cool spring of grass under her feet, the way the leaves swayed and fluttered in the breeze.  But, brave girl that she is, she never returned to her carrier, but ventured forth, poking about the garden.

 

Juniper Contest- Any Custom Item Up to a $50 Value

I had wondered what best to offer for our next drawing from our donor list.  A moss stick?  That would be nice, but I doubt the black thumbs of the world would like me giving them something they had to care for.

A pair of draped sticks? That could be fun, but some people might find them a bit too fancy for everyday use. We just did a pair... a solo stick, well, that'd work.  Herbal products tend to be pretty particular to what a person wants... 

While looking at my custom order list I decided that was the way to go.  So here it is, the rules of this contest:

• Anyone that has donated to Juniper already is automatically entered, unless they've already won a Juniper contest.
• Anyone new that donates at least $5 to her cause by the end of the month (June 30th) will be entered.  You can donate by purchasing a Juniper item for $5, $10, $25, or $50, or by sending a donation via PayPal to night.blooming.garden@gmail.com.  Please be sure to mark it for Juniper and to use the gift option.
• Multiple donations don't aid your cause.  Each person gets one entry, so your odds of winning are the same if you donate one $50 donation, or ten $5 donations.
• The item can be ANYTHING.  I stopped making custom items that were joint designs with customers over a year ago because it was so overwhelming, but I'm making an exception in this case.  You may spend the full amount on whatever you want, or whatever you can dream up, so long as it stays under the price limit.  I will even include Winter Salve in this.  Juniper is worth a special batch if someone wanted it.
• You can choose multiple items that total $50. So if you wanted a pair of sticks, a pot of salve and a bag of our new Miruvor Hair Growth Tea, you can do that too.
• The winner will be put directly on the very top of the custom order list. The winner will be selected from a random drawing of all the donors. If you are already on the custom order list and win I will bump both this custom and your current custom to the top and they'll ship together. 
• Shipping is on the house, anywhere in the world.  And by shipping I mean First Class or First Class International.  If you would like to upgrade to Priority or Priority International with insurance, that will be an additional shipping fee.

Please please spread the word about this contest :)  It's for a very good cause and one very grateful kitten.

Juniper Donations & a Poll on Panacea Packagaing

 Juniper Donations

Thank you so very, very much to everyone that has donated!  By your generosity Juniper has received $474 towards her care!  That's almost a third of the way!  Don't forget that everyone that donates is eligible to win one of our Juniper Items in a drawing.  Right now we have Juniper's Gratitude up, but more items will be coming soon!

Our little girl is doing fantastic!  She's off her antibiotics and pain medication.  Slowly, but steadily, she's learning to  interact with the other cats in the house.  There's still lots and lots of hissing, but now she can at least get within a few feet of the others.

I'm not sure if her back claw will grow back :(  While it doesn't look infected any longer, the tissue looks somewhat dead and isn't showing any signs of claw regrowth.  As much as I'm vehemently against declawing, we may have to take off this one rather than leave it exposed and tender.  We'll give it a bit longer before making a final decision on it.

Until then, we'll keep you posted on how she's doing!

A Poll on Panacea Packaging

These little plastic discs are neat and all, but not recyclable :(

I hope everyone is enjoying their salves and the new 8 ounce containers!  Keep in mind, the final batch of winter salve for the year is posted, and when it's gone, it's gone!

My question is, what do you think of these things?  They're the little liners I cap off the salves with.  They're supposed to give greater leak protection, but obviously the sample sizes do just fine without them.  Would you prefer I keep using them for the 2 and 8 ounce jars of salve, or should I reduce the amount of packaging and stop using them?

Please let me know your thoughts in the poll below!  Spread the word so others have a chance to vote as well.

What are your thoughts on the disc jar liners for Panacea's Salve?
	Please keep them, I like them!
	I'm really not too particular either way.
	Stop using them, they don't work/ I don't like the extra packaging.

Juniper's Gratitude Contest & Last Batch of Winter Salve

 

Contest: Juniper's Gratitude Hair Sticks

In the first week of fundraising for Juniper we've raised $144!!  That's fantastic!  My most sincere thanks go out to those who have found it in their hearts to donate to Juniper's recovery.

For anyone that either donates (or has already donated) to Juniper's cause by purchasing one of her items on Etsy,  or donating via PayPal to night.blooming.garden@gmail.com your name will be entered into a drawing for this lovely pair of hair sticks called Juniper's Gratitude.



At the end of the month, Tuesday May 31st, I'll draw a name from all the donors, and the lucky winner will get this lovely pair of hair sticks for only 20 cents! 

Juniper's Gratitude Sticks are built upon rosewood and are topped with silver floral petwer and rounds of Russian Jade. Silver leafwork uplifts two creamy white glass pearls, and from the top of one stick spills a tangle of vines and soft green glass droplets.  The pair has a usable length of 5.25 inches, a total length of 6.5 inches, and a dangle length of 2 inches.

Keep your eyes open for more Juniper's Gratitude items to be listed!


Last Batch of Winter Hair Salve!

Winter Slave is melting fast!  The last batch of the season is made and posted in the shop, so stock up before
its gone!  After this, there won't be any more until October 31st, 2011!

Healing Juniper

 

Some of you may remember Tsavo the blind kitten, and how the kind hearts on Etsy helped us raise enough money to allow him to see the world. If not, here's his story.  Now, two years later, we have another furry soul in need of aid. Her name is Juniper, and she is Deaf.


On April 15th I was woken in the wee hours of the morning to a text message- there was an abused cat, she'd been beaten and can't stay where she is. Her life is in danger, can you please help?

What else was there to do, but help?

Juniper came to us from four hours away, exchanged in a cold, rainy, windy parking lot. She had been hit over and over with a blunt object, her tiny fragile body bruised and in pain. One of her claws stuck up at a physically impossible angle and we feared her toe was broken; the sides of her eyes were red with broken blood vessels and she limped. Those were the things we could see, and we were fearful that there was more damage, worse damage, inside.

There wasn't even a carrier for her and she rode to our house on my lap, curled up and sleeping. Though she was 9 years old, she had the body of a kitten, scarcely weighing in at 6 pounds.

Juniper had never been to a vet, was not spayed, had never been vaccinated or tested for any sort of communicable disease. She passed her first night quarantined with her bed and a soft blanket in a downstairs bathroom in front of a heater to keep her diminutive frame warm.

Here's Juniper in the downstairs bathroom on her first night with us

We were able to take her to the vet the next morning, and the costs started to soar immediately. She needed a complete blood work profile, to be tested for FIV/FLV, a host of vaccinations, x-rays and a urine-analysis. Her toe was not broken, thankfully, but the entire claw had been all but torn off and it was badly infected. The vet had to remove what little remained of her claw, exposing the tender quick, cleaning it as best she could. The hope is that it will grow back, but its uncertain if it will or not.

Though it can't be seen in this picture, the blood vessels on the sides of her eyes are broken from being hit :(

There are pain medications and antibiotics to administer. We knew she needed a spay, but she also has dental disease and needs to have that addressed in a separate round of treatment, later on once she was more stable. We also had her micro-chipped, ensuring she'd be returned to us if she ever slipped outside.

On the 25th Juniper was spayed, the surgery so much harder to heal on her 9-year old body than it is for a kitten. We opted for the laser surgery to reduce the pain, swelling, bleeding and recovery time for her, but it increased her vet bill all the more.

Surprisingly her eyes are not blue, which is the most common for Deaf cats. Instead hers are a stunning hazel/blue/green.

There are many people who would have opted to just put her down, or dump her at a shelter and let them cover the costs of her recovery... but who would adopt a senior cat who is Deaf? She'd most likely have been euthanized on the spot. Juniper deserves so much more than that, and we are determined to heal her and give her a forever home.

We've researched how to best communicate with Deaf cats, including teaching them simple sign language (not real ASL, but just hand motions that she'll associate with things like "food," "come here," and "we love you." We'd like to get her a special vibrating collar to "call" to her when she's not in line of sight.

Now, she's home, recovering, and has to relearn her entire world. Progress is slow, but there, and we hope in time she'll be able to go out on supervised visits to the garden, to enjoy the sun and the flowers and the butterflies.

Though the day was rainy, Juniper does seem to love looking out at the garden.

This poised lady will have a loving retirement, but with taking her in so unexpectedly her vet bills are painfully high, easily clearing $1,500 inside of two weeks. We still have surgery costs left to cover, as well as prescriptions, after care, follow-ups and a dental once she's rested a bit; and so I come again to those with big hearts and a soft spot for a hard-luck story for help.

In my Etsy store you'll find a few Juniper items, all the proceeds of which will go to cover her outstanding vet bills. For a donation of $5 or $10 we will email you an 8x10 print of Juniper, without all the watermarks, complete with the Helen Keller quote: "The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart."

A donation of $25 will be rewarded with a pin-- silver lace-like metal leads to a dangle with a round of Russian Jade and a silver stamped leaf. Perfect for holding back bangs as they grow out, or as a unique accent piece to an updo.  A $50 donation will come with a stunning hair clip, delicate and flashing with a Russian Jade and silver leaf dangle.

If you would prefer to donate without an Etsy listing (which saves us from losing part of the donation to Etsy fees), you can PayPal your donation directly to night.blooming.garden@gmail.com.  Please use the gift/donation option and mark it for Juniper. :)

The Juniper plant has long been known for it's healing properties, we thank you for helping our Juniper recover and enjoy her new home.  I'll keep posting updates on her and our fundraising process! Let's make this little Juniper grow!

Thank you all so much for taking the time to read though all of this. Please send this to any animal lovers you know!