finnleyshortstuff

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I made a bunch of dried citrus garland and ornaments this year, and if you’re looking for low-budget high-impact gift ideas for the holiday season, I cannot recommend this enough. I have had nearly all of my aunts reach out to ask me for these already.

All you do is take oranges (and grapefruit, in my case, but you could use any citrus fruit, lemon and limes included. You could also do slices of apple or other fruits, but they don’t dry as pretty) and cut them into slim, even slices. Blot the slices as dry as you can get them with paper towel, then lay them flat on drying racks, if you have them, or cookie sheets if you don’t. The cookie sheets will take longer, but will probably produce flatter slices at the end. If you want to, you can take cloves and push them into the slices before you dry them; the oranges should contract around them and hold them in place.

Put these into the oven at 200-220 degrees F (93 C), and bake for at least 4 hours. Check them hourly; it may take up to 7 hours, depending on the thickness of your slices and oven air circulation. Take them out when they no longer feel wet or sticky to the touch. 

A 5 lb bag of navel oranges was enough to garland most of this tree. All you need for that is a thick needle and some string (DMC embroidery floss works well, and is less than a dollar a skein at walmart and other chain stores). You just tie off the first orange, and then use the needle to go in and out each slice near the edges. If you’re making ornaments, check your local dollar store for bits of ribbon, jingle bells, beads or whatever else seems good to you. A hot glue gun is helpful but not necessary; all the ornaments here are just tied together. 

I have plenty of herbs drying in my cupboard, so I also used some sprigs of rosemary and lavender, plus cinnamon sticks, cloves, and allspice. Rosemary is easy to find as live plants in the grocery section, and you can trim some off without killing the plant (and then you have i n f i n i t e  r o s e m a r y). Get creative!

These smell fantastic, and should last multiple seasons if they’re dried allll the way and stored in airtight containers. (I chucked some of the odd bits into my mulling spices, which is lovely.) They’re a very old method of decorating and look beautiful even when they’re not perfect. If you’ve made these before, I’d love to see what you made!

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I’m curious, given the length of time I’ve had my own online moniker:

Please reblog for sample size!

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Transphobia is so antithetical to genuine feminism it blows my mind there's such a wide overlap like you either believe in autonomy and self determination or you don't

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Everyone has goth sex hormones it came free with your fucking existence.

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Most normal Mario Girls conversation

Based on this funny tumblr post I found:

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Symptoms and Side Effects, a tabletop RPG about chronic illness.

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"I don't want to read this" is totally valid.

"This is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't want to read this because it is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.

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“Generically medieval”, by which we mean our peerage is French, our castles are German, our weapons are Italian, and everybody speaks English.

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Guess who just figured out how to climb inside the woodstove???

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I bet octopuses think bones are horrific. I bet all their cosmic horror stories involve rigid-limbs and hinged joints.

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We all know it's true.

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if you're transgender and need name ideas, may I direct you toward the nato alphabet because like. delta? november?? echo?? romeo is like the butchest name. please consider foxtrot. being named whiskey would be cool as hell. I know multiple transmascs who were a bit too into english lit and are named victor now. I've met people named sierra who were trans in every direction. maybe don't name yourself golf