Blisscraft Life With Christina Katz

So a couple weeks ago, I went to Thriftapalooza in Portland, Oregon. I almost didn’t go because I wasn’t sure it would be a good place to source for my Vintage space and Etsy shop.

I was wrong. I am often wrong when I rely on my mind. I make plenty of mistakes just like everyone else. Usually if I am making mistakes, I am making progress. And if I’m not making mistakes, I’m probably playing it too safe. I prefer to trust my gut and go with the flow because that’s how I usually succeed in my intentions.

Anyway, I have over 20 planters in my Etsy shop, including hanging planters. I will keep replenishing them if folks like and buy them.

Please check them out in my Etsy shop, BlissCraftLife, and follow me there and on Instagram. I appreciate your support!

And also check out Thriftapalooza! It’s a really fun thrifting event that is worth attending. There was one in Portland and one coming up in Puyallup, Washington. The folks running it are super-nice and friendly and really care about sustainability and everyone having a great time.

More on the person who changed my mind about Thriftapalooza soon!

Christina Katz is a member of a creative family, where each person is encouraged to be authentic and expressive. She firmly believes that evolving people make the world a better place. Learn more about her on Etsy or Instagram.

Who has fond memories of Richard Scarry books? I do!

When I saw this collectible mouse driving pencil car from Busy Busy World and other Richard Scary illustrations, I had to get it for my Etsy Shop.

If you are a toy collector or you know any collectors who might love this stuffed and plastic toy in excellent condition, send them on over to my Etsy shop, BlissCraftLife.

This stuffed and plastic toy is a rare find. I scooped him up at a collector’s estate sale. He just makes my heart happy. I know he will make someone else’s heart happy, too.

Christina Katz is a member of a creative family, where each person is encouraged to be authentic and expressive. She firmly believes that evolving people make the world a better place. Learn more about her on Etsy or Instagram.

I really love thrifting. Even if you have known me for a while, you may not know how much I enjoy thrifting. Not shocking, I know, considering how many folks like saving money and preserving the planet by buying used items versus new.

In the past, thrifting has been a hobby — something we have done on family outings. We have especially enjoyed going to new-to-us towns and checking out the vintage and thrift shops. It’s just something we naturally gravitate towards doing. We are creative types and we love visual input and interesting objects. Thrifting almost always involves happy surprises.

I love learning and I am always learning something new whether I share about it or not. There is a lot to learn about thrifting and I live in a area where opportunities are plentiful. I already have an Etsy shop. I originally used it to create and sell digital posters. A few years ago, I started adding some of my dried florals. Then this year, I decided to declutter our empty nest and added a few vintage items to my shop. It’s been fun and a good creative outlet, and after doing it for a little while, I went out and got a space in a local thrift marketplace. I’ve always enjoyed making seasonal vintage and floral vignettes and now I have a fun outlet for those projects.

Along the way, I am learning and growing. There’s always a lot of trial and error in the beginning of trying new things and I find the key is to not give up too easily. You have to be willing to be bad at things initially. You have to be willing to be an individual, who follows the dance of her own creative spark without copying others. You have to get used to people not understanding why you always seem to be trying new things. You have to trust that non-conformity isn’t something you do to be different; it’s something that happens naturally when you are being yourself.

If you are interested in keeping up with me and what I’m up to, you can follow me here, on Etsy and on Instagram. No doubt I’ll be busy learning new things and sharing about the ups and downs of following my bliss. If we want a better tomorrow, we need more bliss today. Bliss orientation may not always be easy but it’s definitely a habit worth practicing.

Christina Katz is a member of a creative family, where each person is encouraged to be authentic and expressive. She firmly believes that evolving people make the world a better place. Learn more about her on Etsy or Instagram.

Photo by Julien-Pier Belanger on Unsplash

Well, well, well, I never thought this day would come.

I added vintage items to my Etsy shop, BlissCraftLife. I never thought I would actually let myself do something I enjoy doing so much.

Do you know what I mean? Sometimes it’s just hard to overcome the conditioning that says that real work is serious, hard and grueling. And you’d better have a degree in that or just forget it.

Not that creating an Etsy shop is a piece of cake — it isn’t. Mostly it takes time and surrendering to the step-by-step, trial and error process. But by expanding what I offer to include vintage items, my shop just feels more well-rounded — more like me.

I’m multi-faceted and I like being this way. I know I am not the only person, who enjoys taking a varied approach to life.

So, here it is– my newly updated Etsy shop, Blisscraft Life. I am having fun with it and I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s all about.

Thanks for checking it out and supporting me by following my shop, liking some items and even making a purchase if you feel so moved.

I appreciate your time and I hope you are taking some time to follow your bliss today, too.

I have created a discount code for 20% off all items in my Etsy shop, Blisscraft Life.

Please participate in my “Thankful” sale between now and Friday, November 19th.

You can use the code “Thankful” or click here for the code to be added to your order automatically.

This offer is only good for a short time! Order Thanksgiving decor now to receive it in time for the holiday.

All of my downloadable writing posters are also on sale as are my craft ebooks.

I am adding new decor items to the shop steadily so please keep checking back.

Thank you for supporting small, creative businesses this holiday season!

Christina Katz is a writer, artist, coach and activist, committed to living colorfully out loud.

Best Sour Cream Banana Bread With Walnuts And Chocolate Chips

Ingredients:

• 2 cups organic flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 c salted butter
• 3/4 c dark brown sugar (or use sugar subs for baking)
• 2 large pasture-raised eggs at room temperature
• 1/3 c sour cream or plain yogurt
• 2 c ripe mashed organic bananas (about 4)
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 c walnuts
• 3/4 c chocolate chips

No or low sugar substitutes can be subbed in for ingredients. Match texture to texture for best results.

Put oven rack in the lower third position, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or spray a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan. Set aside.

Whisk flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon together in medium bowl.

Use mixer to cream butter and brown sugar for two minutes. Then on medium speed, beat in each egg one at a time. Beat in the sour cream, mashed bananas, and vanilla extract on medium speed until mixed. Switch mixer to low speed, slowly blend in the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just mixed. Fold in nuts and chocolate chips. Do not overmix.

Spoon batter into greased loaf pan and bake for 60-65 minutes. Loosely cover the pan with foil after 30 minutes to keep top from getting too brown. A skewer or toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf will come out clean when bread is done. Please check. Ovens do vary. Cool bread on wire rack.

Wrap bread in foil and store in the fridge for up to a week. It won’t last that long. Heat slices for 20 seconds in the microwave before eating. Delicious!

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. I am a human being who lives with another human being and we have both learned a lot about gut health recovery over the past few years. I am simply sharing some of the things we have learned from personal experience.

We have had some gut health issues in our home over the past few years. If poor gut health, leaky gut or any kind of digestive disorders affect you or someone you love, the first thing I want to acknowledge is how common gut problems are in the world. There are a lot of things that can cause gut problems like aging (often happens for those over the age of 45), poor food quality (thanks GMO manufacturers and Glyphosate companies), use of OTC and prescription drugs (you may have needed them before but if you don’t any longer, why not stop or at least stop as many as you comfortably can?) and stress (who isn’t somewhat stressed these days?).

People with gut pain need quick, safe solutions they can test out to improve gut resilience swiftly. But that’s not typically what is offered. In my opinion, most of the mainstream offerings to relieve gut pain do not help at all and may even make things worse. I suggest you try healing your gut yourself by conducting personal experiments using food and supplements and see if you can improve your situation. However, from everything I have seen up close and personal, gut pain is no laughing matter. The pain is real. Don’t ignore it. Don’t let it linger. Take baby steps towards relief sooner rather than later.

Remember the definition of insanity, which is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. Nothing changed for the better at our house until we started doing things differently and then kept doing and adding new things that worked for us. You may have to try a lot of new things to discover solutions to your digestive discomfort. I am here to tell you: it’s totally worth it.

We’ve tried a bunch of things at our home and I am going to share some of the best gut health solutions we’ve found.

1. Order ION — Intelligence Of Nature Gut Support and take it as recommended. You can find this amazing microbe product either on the website of Dr. Zach Bush or on My Amazon Link. If you use my Amazon link I get a cut and, of course, there is no pressure whatsoever — only support my blog if you wish. I encourage you to use whatever sources offer you the most savings (this stuff is not cheap, but it’s so helpful). Our experience with this product is that it delivers exactly what it says it will deliver: a more resilient digestive system that can tolerate more varieties of foods even if they were not tolerated in the past. We did not go straight to ION. We tried other things first and I will tell you about them shortly. But if I could do it all over again, I would order ION as soon as I possibly could and I would take it as directed. If it helps you the way it’s helped us, then you’re welcome in advance.
2. Elimination Of Pain-triggering Foods. I know it’s hard to stop when foods you are used to eating trigger intolerable pain. But, hear me out. You may only have to give them up in the short run. I can’t promise because I can’t promise anything. But I can encourage you to experiment starting today. Say you ordered ION and you are waiting for it to arrive. In the meantime, cease eating the foods and drinks that cause you pain or reflux or gas or whatever symptoms you are dealing with. Just put those foods and drinks to the side in your home, for now, and stick to whatever you can digest comfortably.
3. What If There Are Almost No Foods You Can Tolerate? Okay, listen up. If you are in a situation where your digestive system has become so inflamed that you can hardly eat anything, acknowledge that you are in an emergency situation. Your gut is sending you messages and you have to listen. In the short run, every food that causes pain must be eliminated from your diet. Some suggestions of foods to eliminate right off the bat are: all processed foods, fried foods, hard-to-digest meats and deli products, dairy products, starchy vegetables like potatoes, vegetables from the nightshade family, breads including gluten-free breads and pastas and rice, sweets as well as all kinds of condiments including pepper- or chili-based spices. Here are some foods that may not be as hard to digest that can keep you going until you start taking ION regularly: sweet potatoes, blueberries, raspberries, quality bone broth, bananas, organic grass-fed no sugar yogurt like Nancy’s, plain white rice cakes with no-skin almond butter or no-skin macadamia butter, eggs, salmon, plain white chicken or turkey. Cooking in imported virgin olive oil is recommended. The key is to baby your stomach by eating small amounts of plain foods and keep your diet very simple. Try salting your food with pink Himalayan salt. You may need to eat lightly for a week or more in order to stabilize your system. If you need help finding foods you can eat in the short run, I recommend reviewing this Yes/No List from Dr. Gundry as part of his Lectin-free Diet. Hopefully you won’t have to go on the Lectin-free Diet full time or for very long, but it sure can help you eliminate potentially pain-causing foods in the short run. Again, I hope you will have a long happy future eating all the foods you love. But in the short run, don’t eat what you want; eat what your gut needs to recover and heal now.
4. Take The Daily Recommended Amount Of These Supplements Once You Can. Once your digestive system is calm enough to tolerate supplements, here are the ones I recommend. You are welcome to buy them with my Amazon link or track them down yourself.
   1. Magnesium Glycinate: You may have heard that most of us are deficient in Magnesium however some types of Magnesium have challenging side-effects. I recommend the fully chelated Magnesium Glycinate at the recommended daily amount split into two or three doses throughout the day. We take half after breakfast and half before bed with the added benefit that it assists with a good night’s sleep. Magnesium is good for healing your gut and helps calm your nerves. So even if you don’t have gut issues, you can try this product to help you get more consistent sleep. [My Amazon Link or visit the Solaray site]
   2. Vitamineral Green: If you have been suffering from digestive issues for a while, you may be deficient in some vitamins and minerals. Taking 4 – 8 Vitamineral Green tablets a day is a good way to make sure you have all your green foods covered. Once you are again eating adequate green foods, you can decrease this supplement or eliminate it. As with all my recommendations, you are the expert on how you feel. Conduct your own experiments. [My Amazon Link or visit the HealthForce Superfoods site]
   3. Vitamin D: We’ve just passed the Fall Equinox here in the Northern part of the US and you know what that means for many people — the winter blues. Try to get out in the sun as much as you can in the darker months. Take a little walk while you’re at it or do some outdoor chores. Breathe fresh air and move your body. Let the sun hit your skin as much as you can without catching a chill. If you still feel kind of low, try taking a daily Vitamin D supplement for a couple weeks and see if you notice an improvement in mood. And don’t stop grabbing sunshine whenever you can. Most people have depleted Vitamin D reserves over the darker months. Get yours up and keep it up, as best you can. [My Amazon Link or visit the Thorne site]
5. Sprinkle A Pinch Of Pink or Gray Salt Into Your Drinking Water. You won’t get iodine from this salt but your body will stay better hydrated and hydration is healing. Keep a BPA-free water bottle with you all day with your barely salted high-quality water. Avoid water in plastic bottles. Avoid municipal water if you can. Well water is typically better than municipal water, so bring your water from home if you have a well. Either way, leave your glass of barely salted drinking water open on the kitchen counter in a glass or water bottle when you go to bed and then chug some first thing when you wake up. Sip on this water throughout the day, don’t wait until you feel thirsty. Also use it to take your supplements. I like using salts in a grinder like this one [My Amazon Link] but you can find them in most grocery stores.
6. General Lifestyle Tips: Here are some more ways to help heal your gut that you may not realize you’ve gotten away from:
   1. Switch To Organic Vegetables, Pasture-raised Eggs And Grass-fed Meats Gradually. I understand that it’s too expensive for most people to upgrade the quality of foods overnight. I suggest you commit to upgrading your food quality over the course of a year. Here’s how it works: you buy no more processed foods and invest that money into better quality whole foods. In the meantime, know the Dirty Dozen and start buying those foods in organic form immediately.
   2. Get Outside And Breathe. Sometimes when you’ve been feeling unwell, you spend too much time indoors. But the fresh air and sunshine are outside. Keep your outdoor shoes and jacket by the door and get out there as much as you can each day. If you won’t do it on your own, make plans to meet friends.
   3. Move Your Body. What’s your favorite exercise? Mine is walking. Your choice does not have to be extreme or exotic. It can be as basic as lacing up your shoes and heading out the door. Consider adopting a dog if you need motivation for taking walks outdoors. Dogs make great companions.
   4. Touch Nature. Why not start gardening? If you have never done it, maybe begin with a container of herbs. Even a four-foot by four-foot square can grow a beautiful patch of flowers. Don’t try to garden perfectly. Get down with your hands and knees in the dirt and let nature encourage next steps. In America, we tend to make gardening complex and intimidating. I’m talking about putting down some newspapers or cardboard, covering it in a few inches of planting compost, scattering some seeds and watering them in. Gardening can be this simple. No need for herbicides or pesticides. No-dig gardening doesn’t require them.
   5. Take Short Trips To Beautiful Places Near And Far. We prefer short day trips to long overnight trips. Planned vacations can be somewhat exhausting but short day trips can spark fresh energy and improved perspective within 24 hours. Don’t judge your budget or compare yourself with your neighbors, just get out there and have an adventure.
   6. Address Unhealed Trauma. Most people have some amount of trauma. Americans have a tendency to either dismiss trauma or expect people to hurry up and get over it. Neither of these attitudes are healthy or helpful. Underneath your trauma is your authentic self. You may have to dig deep to feel and heal and process your trauma but it’s worth it. The more trauma you have, the more time you should grant yourself to heal it. Other people’s opinions about whether or not you have or do not have trauma are irrelevant. You are the only one living in your body. I believe that simply living in the modern world is traumatizing. 2020 was traumatizing. 9-11 was traumatizing. Naming and claiming the traumatic moments in your life is as important as naming and claiming the blissful moments of your life. We have all had both as well as the spectrum in between.
   7. Let Healing Be A Process. Your inability to digest well could have been caused by any number of triggers. Sadly, we live in a world that favors corporate greed over the abundance of healthy food that is our birthright. It’s okay to acknowledge how much out there is unhelpful in order to better locate what is helpful. I am going to list some resources below if you’d like to dive deeper into what they have to offer on your own. I may come back later and update this post. I wish you the best of luck in your gut-healing experiments. Don’t give up! I am holding the vision of total recovery for you and your loved ones and a return to the deep enjoyment of delicious healthy food.

Any Interview With Dr. Zach Bush

The Lectin-free Diet by Dr. Steven Gundry, Shopping List

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Lately I have been thinking about what I do best in the niche of flower growing. Recently I was discussing a bouquet with someone and they asked if I had grown most of the flowers from seed. The answer is yes, I grow most of my flowers from seed and you can, too. You don’t need to be a flower farmer and you don’t even need to grow a lot of flowers. You can just grow enough to enjoy yourself.

I cannot tell you how much joy my flower gardens have brought me, especially over the past few years. One thing I have learned is how much these basics secrets simply are not taught. Conspiracy theories aside, this is America. We make most things way too complicated. I like to keep things as simple as possible. My philosophy is: more flowers, less fuss.

Earth as seen from space. Credit: NASA

I don’t know about you but I am tired of being told who I have to vote for in politics. I am tired of voting out of fear rather than personal preference. This is supposed to be a democracy not a fearocracy.

The historic and current neglect and abuse of Earth really irks me. As far as I am concerned, Earth is a powerful sentient being and we live on her. We are literally desecrating the very foundation we stand on.

And don’t even get me started with talk of fleeing to Mars or fighting World War III in space. No freaking way. Enough with the arrogant colonizer energy. I am pretty sure that’s how we got where we are.

When are we going to stop rubbing everyone else’s backs and start finding our own backbone? The USA is a mess. We are divided and we are destructive. We are not heroes. We are not a democracy. We are not free.

Freedom begins and ends with taking care of the earth we stand on. We should all be able to agree on this. It should be a no-brainer. Without Earth, there is no humanity. The idea that we can all just hop on a rocket and go to Mars is baloney. Only the richest are going to Mars (and good luck with that). The rest of us are staying right here.

We all have one thing in common: her name is Earth. It’s time to clean up our act. I would love to see a global artist campaign that puts Earth and her needs at the center of everyone’s attention prior to the 2024 elections. It does not need to be organized. Most of us have access to the Internet. We can just do it.

I will be forwarding lots of Earthcentric art and inspiration on social media and I invite you to join me. Got Earthcentric art ideas? Now is the time to create, create, create. Intellectualism is dead. Art is everything. Let’s create an online movement seeded by things that really matter like, you know, the ground under our feet.

Let’s vote with our likes and shares for the people who care about Earth. If enough of us join in, maybe our intentions can take root and blossom in time to turn this crash-dummy test around.

Earth first. Earth now. Earth for President or do we even really need a President? Maybe having a President is part of the problem. Become President of your own life and make a sentient Earth central to your daily existence. If we care and act from there, things change.

People of Earth, it’s time to wake up. We have some time but not much. We have enough time to express what we deserve and demand loud and clear. This is how we start changing the world from colonizer culture to care and share culture. Care and share culture is the future even if it does not look that way right now. I can feel it in my bones. How about you?