How happy is your uterus?

I’ve said before that what I lack in artistic execution I have to make up for with imagination. So that’s why, when the rest of my Bricolage Group deals with the monthly challenge of “tea bags,” they make beautiful art out of the tea bag paper. The thinness of the paper, the way it absorbs brewed tea and various inks, and their experiments with the translucence yields gorgeous, colorful art.

I made tea.

Happy Uterus Tea, to be specific. This week’s New Thing.

It all started with the unruly Lady’s Mantle growing in the backyard and whether or not I was going to uproot it for the new deck going in. So I Googled Lady’s Mantle to see what it was good for (other than making the dew that collects in the leaves look like jewels).

Lady’s Mantle is good for Happy Uterus Tea: “Lady’s mantle is a powerful female herb for anytime during a woman’s reproductive life.” So, in our Third Thirds, that would mean it “reduces or eliminates hot flashes/night sweats, … frayed nerves, insomnia, sadness.” What’s not to like?

The recipe was pretty simple: I had the Lady’s Mantle, both leaves and flowers. I even had the raspberry leaves. On a trip to Fairbanks and the Farmers’ Market, I landed the lemon balm. I had to dry out all these cuttings, but that was pretty simple once I discovered that leaving them in a hot car on a sunny day works. Then I just occupied myself crumbling leaves into jars. And as long as I was crumbling leaves, I threw in some mint from my garden, too.

Once before I’d made tea bags out of coffee filters – that was another project for a different crazy idea – which I sewed into the right rectangular shape. But this was supposed to be Art. I needed some kind of Happy Uterus shape.

Uteruses (uteri?) are pretty unrecognizable as shapes. In fact, they look suspiciously like something else which I dare not mention after my previous scary experience of this blog becoming an Asian porn attraction.

So I tried several different shapes. Since they’d be soaking in hot water, I thought I could decorate them by sewing designs on them rather than painting.

I filled them with the dried leaves and sewed them shut. I made little tags and attached them with thread.

Is this Art? Or, the bigger question: Is my uterus happy?