The cold and flu pills I made really were a piece of cake. It was slightly time consuming to fill all the little pills, but that was outweighed by how much I just love that little capsule-making gadget. But making a tincture was even easier! I used the same combination of herbs (goldenseal, echinacea, licorice root, and ginger) and put them to soak in glycerin and water for a few weeks, shaking the jar a few times a day. I kept it where I'd see it regularly so the herbs could get a good toss every once in a awhile. Once it was done I just strained it into jars and it was ready to go!
Clay swears by this stuff. There's been a cold knocking at our door the past week or two and we've mostly kept it at bay by dosing ourselves with this mixture and some lobelia tinctured in apple cider vinegar from Clay's mom.
For our handmade sibling gift exchange this year I drew Clay's little sister Molly's name. I made her a kit of all sorts of herbal remedies, salves, lotions and potions with a cute rice bag tucked in (I wish I had a picture; somehow I didn't take pictures of any of the rad gifts this year!). It was really fun to try some new recipes and learn as I went. I feel so much more capable now and the whole process seems more straightforward and less like mystical wizard science. Herbal remedy making is one of those things you just have to jump into and get your hands a little messy before you can feel confident. But once you do it's like a whole new world of possibilities opens up. I'm much less intimidated now and feel like I can experiment and improvise a bit.
PS If you're local, Industrial Container is the place to go for little glass jars and droppers and all sorts of things. They're prices change daily, so just go there and browse around. It's really inexpensive, as in pennies per jar. If you're not local, Mountain Rose Herbs has lots of great, reasonably priced containers too.
