wreath inspiration!

we all love making our own wreaths around here...here is a little round up of some of the ones we have made over the years...enjoy!

wreaths by all offs, and mandy too!

utensils

photo by kristen bach

homemade butter, and a delicious loaf of bread

i spent time with our friend amanda in her kitchen a few weeks ago...we have been trickling out recipes from our day together these last few weeks, and today i wanted to share a simple recipe we nibbled on while we worked: homemade butter. amanda found this recipe on sparkle stories' blog, fyi...

homemade butter
makes about 8 ounces

- 2 cups heavy cream

- 4 tablespoons yogurt or buttermilk

- 1 tablespoon salt

- In a clean bowl or large measuring cup, mix the cream and yogurt.
- Cover with a tea towel and allow to sit at room temperature for about 12 hours. At the end of that time, the cream should be thickened and possibly a little golden. (If it’s bubbling or gassy looking, you’ve accidentally introduced some bad bacteria and you’ll need to throw that cream away and start over.)
- Next, pour the thickened cream into a large mixing bowl and whisk with a stand or hand-held mixer for several minutes. The cream will thicken first, but it will eventually “break” into two separate parts—curdles of butter and buttermilk. When that happens, stop the mixer and pour off as much of the buttermilk as you can. This is essentially the same buttermilk you would buy at the store, so save it and use it in another recipe.
- Then, using a spatula or fork, work the butter back and forth at the bottom of the bowl. You’ll notice that even more buttermilk will start to come out. When that happens, add a little ice water and keep working. Every few minutes, pour off the old water and add new—continuing to work the butter all the while. This is called “washing” the butter. The butter is completely washed, and you’re finished, when any new water that you add stays clear.
- If you’d like salted butter, pour the butter out onto a cutting board and sprinkle the salt over the top. Mix the salt in well.
- Finally, pack the butter into small lidded containers and store in the fridge or freezer. Enjoy!

and,
this butter goes so well with this divine bread from my new roots...click here to see the recipe...enojy!

photographs by rinne allen, recipes from sparkle stories & my new roots, via amanda kapousouz

glittered magnolias

all of us here at beauty everyday have other work that we do, in addition to this blog, our books, etc...rebecca runs a pottery studio, i am a photographer, and kristen owns a sweet shop in town, treehouse. there was a great article about kristen's shop in our local paper recently, that focused on a class that our friend hope hilton leads there, called "Craft, Inc". hope has a great group of talented pre-teens who are creative *and* have a good sense of the business side of things. for the holiday markets they made different things to sell. one of the things they made were these glittered magnolia leaves and i love them. this is another good way to bring something from the outside in the wintertime...just paint on some glue and then sprinkle with glitter and let dry- instant sparkle! {addendum: treehouse teacher lindsay troutman originally introduced the glittered magnolia craft to everyone at treehouse...here is a link to her tutorial on how to make them. enjoy!}

words & photographs by rinne allen

see-through fireplace

my friend, john malone, restored a few old log houses on his property. in one of them, he said it was just too dark, so he decided to replace the fireplace and chimney with glass,and just build the framework out of strips of wood!

words & photographs by rebecca wood