I will try to keep it simple.

Homeopathic medicines [called: "remedies"] can be made from anything on this earth, from plants,animals [even such creatures like snakes , scorpions and cockroaches ],minerals,from any man made chemical..........,anything found or made on this earth.

Lets give an example of homeopathy made from a plant tincture.

So what is a tincture from which many homeopathic remedies are made?

A tincture [ often called mother tincture=M.T= T.M ] is a preparation made by steeping plant material in a mixture of alcohol and water for up to one or two weeks. The advantages above a tea made from the herb are: easy to use [drops in a glass of water, a long shelf life.[years] and a much better extraction of some constituents then the tea. The proportions are in general one part of the herb ( weight) to five parts ( volume) of the fluid, although 1:10 may also be used. The proportion of alcohol in the liquid varies from 25-90 per dependent on the herb used and often 25 per cent alcohol is quite satisfactory.

The dose is an average of 20 drops [can be more,can be less]

The difference between a herbal remedy for example chamomile tincture and homeopathic chamomile is that homeopathic chamomile is made from the chamomile tincture but is diluted many many times stepwise [even up to 100.000 !] and every dilution is shaken many times vigorously.[formerly done by pounding the bottle on a book and in our days done mechanically]

This high dilution AND the shaking makes that the remedy may work.

So one may start with a dilution of 1;10 of the mother tincture [or 1:100]

This is called the first decimal [D1 ] or C1[centicimal] dilution and then from this D1  one part is taken and again diluted 1:10,which gives a D2 dilution and so on and on [so D3 is 10 times more diluted then D3 .

If the dilution is high enough [ from D24 and higher] on may not find anymore any material/molecule of the original substance in the homeopathic remedy.

................................explanation of shablon to follow

Not every material is of course simple solvable in water and therefore metals like gold etc have to undergo a special procedure to make them fit as a remedy.

How does homeopathy work or better: what is the purpose?

Every natural substance is a possible homeopathic medicine, as long as it can produce symptoms in a healthy person.

So; if a certain plant,mineral,poison etc give certain symptoms when given to a person [being it just once or sometimes it has to be given for a longer time to cause symptoms] we write these down and call them homeopathic symptoms.

Let's give an example: a child eat a piece or more of a berry of belladonna ,one of the most toxic plants.

If he survives this,the may develop the following symptoms:

Dry mouth,extremely thirsty, high fever [skin feels"scalding hot" to the mother who touches the child],flushed face,dilated pupils,violent delirium , hallucinations [devils ,dogs etc]talking ,laughing,crying,twitches,heavy abdominal pains, craving for sour things[lemon] etc

Now we see a child with some or more of these symptoms:

suddenly ill with high fever,hazayot,dilated pupils,hot ,all symptoms coming on very suddenly and very violent etc

In this case we may recognise in the symptoms of this sick child the symptoms of a healthy child who was poisoned by eating belladonna berrie[s] with the only difference that this suddenly sick child was not poisoned by eating any berries but just got a disease[can be any acute disease,even a meningitis] where the symptoms look very much alike with the poisoned child!

By giving belladonna in homeopathic form we may now be able to heal the sick child.

But even some a single symptom may make us think of belladonna, for example a sudden throbbing violent headache,which get worse if one lies flat and better by lying with the head a bit higher [2 cushions]

Therefore on can imagine that homeopathic belladonna is often used for diseases which start very sudden,with high fever and with violent pain[abdominal pain] or symptoms of the nervous system[twitches,convulsions,frightful hallucinations and so on.

This last idea: what makes a symptom better or worse[weather,position,food,at sea, in the mountains etc etc] is one of the very important cornerstones of finding the right homeopathic drug and is called in homeopathic language : modality .

An example of a combination of modalities are: better by sleeping on the stomach,better at the seashore,better from damp weather: in this case we may have to do with the homeopathic remedy: medorrhinum and the modalities helped us finding the Right remedy

Some babies fall asleep only when put down on their stomach [this is potentially dangerous and had found to increase the chance of crib death]

I have seen cases where medorrhinum may help in these cases so that children can fall asleep on their back,even after a single pill of medorrhinum

Another example :coffee taken in excess may give the following symptoms::nervousness, irritability, anxiety, tremulousness, muscle twitching,insomnia, headaches, and heart palpitations etc