Stephanie's Studio

  SRB Botanica Announces New Moon Collection December 15, 2020 Noted Author, Artist Stephanie Rose Bird Teams Up with Actress Daughter to Craft Healing, Responsibly Sourced Body and  December 15, 2020  - Herbal product company SRB Botanica, led by mother-daughter duo Stephanie Rose Bird and Olivia Bird, has announced the release of their New Moon Collection of body and hair products, timed to coincide with December’s new moon. The products in the collection make fabulous holiday gifts!  Loco for Coco is a simple, old-fashioned handmade cold-processed soap handcrafted from chocolate, cocoa butter and coconut oil with distilled water and lye, and featuring a patchouli lavender scent. Cacao has many phytonutrients and minerals that are great for the skin. Hair potion Palm-made was crafted with four words in mind: modern, healthy, strong, hair. Palm-made yields better hair health through the skilled combination of venerable essential oils such as ylang ylang and rosemary with Organic Afric

I have shared many exciting ventures with you here on this blogging space, today I'm sharing, my most exciting to date— SRB Botanica . My initials are SRB and a Botanica is a plant store that has spiritual offerings as well. For many years, I have been developing and sharing my recipes and formulas, for example, through my six related published mind, body, spirit books, through artisan fairs, at shops and galleries. Through the shop, SRB Botanica, on Shopify, I can share my enthusiasm for herbalism, aromatherapy and healing with even more of you—directly. Moreover, SRB Botanica is a journey I’m sharing with my family. My daughter Olivia Bird is doing an incredible job, not only as a designer and maker, but also with web design and social media. Together, we are having a blast with my old recipes from my first award-winning book, "Sticks, Stones, Roots and Bones: Hoodoo, Mojo and Conjuring with Herbs"  published by Llewellyn Worldwide.  We are also tapping our very vivid,

Even though I'm an author, I'm basically without words today. Words can hurt a life time, like the first time I was called a Nigger as a little child. These words come towards healing: #BlackLivesMatter. Still, my heart is broken. Our collective heart is broken. America can and must do better. Remembering #GeorgeFloyd and so many others. Stop Killing Us! Photo by  Annie Spratt  on  Unsplash

In these troubling and uncertain times of the COVID-19 Pandemic Outbreak, I wasn't sure whether to even do a post about the  Release Day Blitz Book Tour  for my debut novel,  "Out of the Blue."  I had scheduled a while ago. I, like many of you, are under a Shelter-at-Home order and I find it to be very stressful for so many reasons. I do realize however, every now and then, after watching or reading the news until we're exhausted, we need a little break and perhaps something to take us away from the confusion and anxiety of the pandemic we are all facing. For that reason, I want to share with you that today is indeed the release day of my novel that I've been writing about so much. Moreover, I am doing what's called a Release Day Blitz Book Tour through Bewitching Book Tours. This is a type of blog tour focused around the release day of the novel. The blogs you see below will feature me as guest blogger, interviewee or will share information about

Where do we belong? Who are our people? How do you fit in? These are age-old questions. Sometimes we are absolutely sure of the answers and at others we can be completely befuddled. Tina, the protagonist of my debut novel, "Out of the Blue" is on a search for the where, who and how. She finds herself flowing in and out of several distinctly different cultures. She wonders where she fits in to her community and even her family. She thinks she knows who her people are but her deep ancestry paints a different story. "Out of the Blue"  was written for Young Adults (YA). It employs elements of fantasy and magick to explore deeply meaningful questions with which Young Adults wrestle (actually many of us continue this journey towards self-discovery). Being a teenager is fertile ground for engaging with multiple, complicated issues critical to our being. It is a time of tremendous growth, questioning and changes in the body, mind and spirit. That is

Photo by Hanson Lu on Unsplash Water is an important part of my life. I have spent many hours in, on and by the water. It is such a mysterious element. I enjoy its magickal qualities in floor washes, brews, sweet waters, baths, soaks and rituals.  It is a favorite subject matter for my paintings and drawings. We're all about the water. We need and come from water. We also obviously consist largely of water. Photo by Peter Fogden on Unsplash When I think about my fascination with Sirens and the genesis of Kyane, my story's antagonist and her kin, it makes since that they would congeal in my mind into a story. Photo by Allie Smith on Unsplash Sirens hold fascination for many and indeed, there are Siren and Mermaid stories in many countries around the world. They take on various manifestations and may look different from one another but they are still Mermaids and Sirens. Being human and part fish isn't all that far-fetched. Not really. Especially when yo

There has been a long and winding road to getting my fiction represented and published. Now, I can say: Yay! One Odd Bird Press, an innovative new publisher that digs oddballs and the unusual in writing, has picked up my two novels, "Out of the Blue" and "Pine Barren Blues." In fact, I'm creating a series around each novel that will be published over the coming years by One Odd Bird Press. "Out of the Blue" is definitely odd. It breaks barriers in what we expect as readers. It crosses boundaries culturally and bends genres freely. I did not set out to create an odd novel, in particular but that is the way the book turned out. The protagonist, Earnestine, who likes to be called Tina, is a Negro teenager living in Mobile, Alabama. Yes, I said Negro. The story is set in 1947. It takes place before we dug in deep, once again, for our Civil Rights and the Civil Rights Movement took hold. Her story begins a bit after World War II. ended. It is set on the