everyday beautiful

Everyday Beautiful has moved!

Pardon the dust as we have moved! I am excited to have had the blog redesigned and re-organized! We have a lot of new suprises to be announced! Find Everyday Beautiful at...

http://www.everydaybeautifulblog.com 

My week- Insta Friday at Everyday Beautiful

Here's a bit of what's going on at our house this week via grainy cell phone pics. I am linking up to Insta- Friday at Life Rearranged. You should too! It's fun!

My mums are in full bloom in front of each side of the garage! I love them!

To add some more fall decor around here I made a bittersweet wreath from some real bittersweet gathered at a friends house. I put it on the back/side door of the garage. It's small but it makes me smile!

Here is another pumpkin added to the kitchen area above my cookbooks!

We have continued our food adventures here!  I am so excited to be able to stock our pantry and freezer for the winter with fresh local organic food! We started out the weekend with a visit to the local farmers market and apple orchard and picked up another 1/2 bushel of tomatoes, 3 pounds of concord grapes, and 15 more pounds of apples along with some local beef and bacon for some winter soups. We started with the concord grapes.

They were so sweet. They smelled almost like grape soda. Sooo sweet!! We made low sugar grape jelly. Which both my hubby and I agreed was *way* too labor intensive and long. Next time we will stick to jam or preserves! We made tomato sauce out of the tomatos! Here are some of our helpers cranking the food mill. 

And drum roll please! I actally made something from Pinterest this week! Cut the top off my salt container which had ran out and it fits perfectly inside a wide mouth jar ring. Brilliant! Great for storing those bulk grains like my ground flax seed here!

Made a chicken pot pie for dinner tonight, and one for the freezer!

This is what it looks like after quiet time in my girls room! I don't think much resting was going on in that bed!:) Not sure why I even spend money on book shelves? At least the books are getting enjoyed. Right?

A few of you have said you wanted to see a few pics of the Shoppe and I promise to do some more of those soon! This is what my good sized entry way looks like many days around 5pm as my hubby is coming home. Sorry babe! Totally full of boxes, and bolts, and other stuff that was dropped off late afternoon! The UPS guy drops off boxes fairly late, like betweet 5 and 6 so they often sit there till after the kiddos are in bed or the next morning! We {my assistant and I} then process them in the morning!

So that's where the magic begins! I know, super exciting! I will post more pics of the Shoppe soon! Thanks for stopping by for insta friday! Leave a comment so i can hop on over to your blog!

More insta friday posts!

Mini Apples Pies

It's apple season and we have been busy canning apple sauce, apple butter and apple pie filling! I found this fun little recipe by Martha stewart that just uses apple sauce for the filling! And with premade pastry dough it seems very easy to make!

Mini Apple Pie Recipe

My week- Insta Friday at Everyday Beautiful

Here's a bit of what's going on at our house this week via grainy cell phone pics. I am linking up to Insta- Friday at Life Rearranged. You should too! It's fun!

My husband's hobby this winter is to be researching how to put in a garden at our new house. We have never had one so we have much to learn! We took a trip to the library after dinner and got this stack to get us started...

And soooo we also took on a compost pile. We got a bin on mega clearance so decided rather than buy our compost next spring we might as well make some. Here is my little bowl of food scraps to be brought out. I still need to search for a canistar or something. What do you use for your compost scraps?

I had been trying my hand at couponing and had a good trip to Wallgreens this week! got this haul for about $1.90!

We have been making and canning applesauce, apple butter, and I picked up some delicious tart apples at church for *free* this sunday so I made this apple pie filling! So yummy! And it will be heavenly to make {or buy} a piecrust around the holidays and just dump in and bake! *In season* apple pie all winter long! 

We did an Alzheimers walk last this Saturday with a family who is being affected by the disease. The girls don't look to happy there but we all had fun and purposed to talk to our older one about helping out others every time we are able! Thanks to friends and family who donated!

My three year old working on tracing! A laminated sheet I made from a free printable by Confessions of a Homeschooler.

And lest you think we only do productive things this was the next activity that she talked me into sticker fingernail polish!

Whatever keeps 'em happy, I guess! They are only 3 for a moment!

Thanks for stopping over for insta friday! Comment so I can hop on over to your site and check out your week!

Insta- Friday at Everyday Beautiful

There's a lot of fabric, quilting and crafting that goes on on the blog here every week so when I saw the Insta Friday party going on every friday at Life Rearranged, I thought it would be a great way to get a little more personal every week! Since it is just cell phone pics I think i can stay on top of it! {i think i can, i think i can}

So here's a few phone pic peeks {say that 5 times fast} into our home this week. We have been on a healthy food kick and trying to use all our new grains from whole foods. I found this recipe for Quinoa and black beans! The girls both loved it! See that big smile! It was actually De.Lish!

My bestie Christy came over for some much needed craft time! Love it! I am so proud of her, she is learning to sew and catching on quick! We made the cute little A-frame tents you have seen pinned all over pinterest. The one in the background is half done. I picked that fabric because my 3 year old gushes over it anytime she sees it in the Shoppe! "Oh mommy i just love this heart fabric."  I will post more on that project later. Super easy and fun for the kiddos! 

Nothing better than homemade pizza and red wine.  I am usually not a fan of red wine but with pizza it just goes. I *am* liking the pre-made pizza dough from Trader Joe's for $1.20. How do you make your pizza dough? I am wondering if i can freeze some in batches? HMMmm.

It is definitely fall here which always puts me in the mood to organize and decorate! I put out a few pumpkins. Many more to come! This is on our pie safe in the living room!

I got a new devotional by Sarah Young that i have been meaning to pick up for at least 4 years. It comes with rave reviews and I have been enjoying the encouraging words in the morning while my littles eat their breakfast. 

It has helped me to remember that I am soooo blessed even when my little ones turn my clean living room into this in 2.5 seconds *EVERY* morning. Cause I know there will come a time when I will wish there were little dollies and princess tiaras all over the floor to pick up! 

Oh and the Insta-Challenge was show a DIY project so here is my finished tent residing in the toy room!

Thanks for stopping by for insta- friday! Come back soon!  And thanks to Life.rearranged for hosting this every week! I love it!

Recent Kitchen Adventures

Just thought I would share a little of what is going on in my little kitchen!  We are mostly settled into our new place which has far less counter space and natural light than our old kitchen. So I won't be posting too many pics from there. As badly lit food pics tend to look really unappetizing! However I have tried a few good recipes lately that you all should ad to your to-make list.  You can't really go wrong with Pioneer Woman recipes and the two I made this week were absolutely de-lish.  Pasta with Pancetta and Leeks!  So easy and good!

 

And Fresh Green Beans. Which were to. die. for. The best green beans ever!!!  Hop on over to her site and try them out. Pictures credit to Pioneer Woman due to aforementioned lighting!

 

 I have a few (maybe a ton) more PW recipes bookmarked to try! Do you have any PW favorites? Do share!

Pumpkin Dessert Recipes from Martha Stewart

Martha Stewart's list of pumpkin desserts looks so yummy. In time for Thanksgiving festivities!  I think I will make the pumpkin brownies and the muffins!  Thanks Martha!

 

Great Holiday Gift: The best ever homemade caramels

This recipe is so incredibly yummy! I usually make it for Christmas as hostess gifts etc...But made a batch early this year!  It is from an Amish cookbook I purchased many years ago.  I know it has corn syrup in it but once a year is ok with me.  With any candy make sure you pay attention to the temp or they will not turn out.  I use a pretty big dutch oven to make this recipe and a pastry cutter makes slicing easy.  I usually make them long and skinny and wrap in wax paper. Sorry for the bad pics (it was night)!

 

Best Ever Caramels

2 c sugar

1 c brown sugar

1 c light corn syrup

1 c heavy cream

1 c milk

1 c butter

1 1/4 t vanilla

1. Combined sugars, syrup, cream, milk, and butter. Mix well.  Cook Slowly, stirring occasionally until mix reaches firm ball stage (248 degrees). Remove from heat.  Add vanilla.

2. Pour into greased or parchment preparred 8 by 8 pan. Cool.  When firm, turn onto board and cut with heavy knife or shears.  Wrap each square with wax paper.

Bread Bakers Apprentice

We have been making full use of this great cook book lately. My hubby made these wonderful cinnamon rolls with orange flavored frosting and the light wheat sandwich bread turned out yummy.  I would love to make the Brioche but can't seem to get over the amount of butter and eggs in it. 5 eggs and 1 pound of butter! Yikes! Anyone tried it yet?  Its a great book even for beginners!

 

Adorable magnetic knife rack

I love this idea from The Farm Chicks!  It looks like they just used a magnetic knife rack from Ikea and covered it in fabric.  How cute, the possibilities are endless!  See tutorial here!