Press Press Press!

This month our very own Christa Vogt served on the panel of judges, for the fifth annual great Spaces great Places in Fox Cities Magazine...check out the issue for the winners.



In Minnesota Monthly the lovely ladies from Primp, were featured in the issue! Check out the photos and do not forget to take the virtual tour to check out our design work.

Every year I host Thanksgiving dinner for my family. This will be the first year at the farm and I am planing on having a true farm living table. Complete with heirloom table clothes, mismatched china and fancy kerchiefs as napkins. Lets hope I don't burn the sticky toffee pudding this year. Cheers and give thanks for the small things.




"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice."

-Meister Eckhart








English Sticky Toffee Pudding

Ingredients
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup pitted dates
1 1/4 cups boiling water
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
TOFFEE SAUCE:
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup heavy cream, whipped


Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 10-inch round or square baking dish. Sift the flour and baking powder onto a sheet of waxed paper. Chop the dates fine. Place in a small bowl and add the boiling water and baking soda; set aside. In a bowl of electric mixer beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla; beat until blended. Gradually beat in the flour mixture. Add the date mixture to the batter and fold until blended with a rubber spatula. Pour into the prepared baking dish. Bake until pudding is set and firm on top, about 35 minutes. Remove from oven to a wire rack. Toffee Sauce: Combine the butter, heavy cream and brown sugar in a small heavy saucepan; heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil gently over medium low heat until mixture is thickened, about 8 minutes. Preheat broiler. Spoon about 1/3 cup of the sauce over the pudding. Spread evenly on top. Place pudding under the broiler until the topping is bubbly, about 1 minute. Serve immediately spooned into dessert bowls. Drizzle with toffee sauce and top with a spoonful of whipped cream

Warmth and beauty

The wood fireplace goes back thousands of years. In the late 17th century the architectural, constructural developments shapped the fireplaces to what it is known today.



My husband and I live in a 100 year old (very cold) farm house. Heating it has been a chore. We have a furnace that heats most of the house, over the years there have been several additions made to the home... sans heating ducts. We started out with a freestanding gas stove, it was too small. then we went to wood, my husband loves to chop wood, so he thought. That was too much work, too dirty and took to long to warm up. Now we are looking into a larger gas stove... heat at the click of a button, love! Or geothermal heating, which is an investment but good for the earth and worth the money when you see the return in a few years.

Lifes a circus...be inspired!

The circus has been on my brain lately. As some of you know I am recently engaged and am in the middle of wedding planning, our venue is picked!!!! The hollyhock house and gardens in Kewaunee,WI. The twin sisters that own the home come from a long history of circus clowns, there array of old photos lining their staircase walls is what has inspired this post:)

Believe it or not Britney Spears last tour, which I will proudly admit I attended a show; has alot to do with the recent circus craze in design. here are some ideas on how you can bring the circus into your life...

The Magic Circus Hotel has a playful decoration- Disneyland Paris

Circo de Bango $52

Circus Pillows $20

Birds of a feather flock together...

As the birds fly south this year, be inspired to accessorize your home with them. A huge trend this season, and a way to always make it feel like spring in your home during the long winter!

SAVE A TREE, USE A HANKY!

BAD Birds shop

Photographs of the day... Happy things.

1930's

Vintage 1930's

Vintage 1930's

www.vixenvintage.blogspot.com

After cleaning my barn today on this last day of summer I began to think... Of days gone by when the harvest meant something. When apples were sweet and ripe for pie. When canning was a bonding experience. When corn was picked by hand. When family worked together to survive and the Privy was the last place you wanted to go on a brisk fall night.

I know I am not the only girl around who feels she was born in the wrong era and it's comforting to know so. Aprons and chickens and all things erstwhile call my name. I am in love with the photographs from the Farm Security Administration. They are romantic and haunting. Beautiful and terrifying. Glorious and disheartening. If I had a super power it would most definitely be time travel.

Music is a huge part of my obsession with the past. You must surround yourself... Clothes, music, food, books. Setting the vibe is all the fun. So whilst I eat some cherry pie while wearing one of my 100's of vintage aprons I might be listening too...

Most fair beauty bright- Jean Ritchie

Shady Grove- Doc Watson

The Cuckoo- Clarence "Tom" Ashley

The Butchers Boy- Buella Kazee

John Harsy- The Carter Family

Swanno Man- Roscoe Holcomb

Great 1930's books to catch up on...

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (1931)

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939)

The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings ( 1938

Adorable 1940's style retro aprons for kids & moms. Hand made. Stitchthrutime.com. $43.95

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ‘Tis the gift to be free, ‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, And when we find ourselves in the place just right, It will be in the valley of love and delight. -Simple Gifts was written by Shaker Elder Joseph Brackett, Jr. in 1848

The photographs of the Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection form an extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1944. This U.S. government photography project was headed for most of its existence by Roy E. Stryker, formerly an economics instructor at Columbia University, and employed such photographers as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Jack Delano, Marion Post Wolcott, Gordon Parks, John Vachon, and Carl Mydans. The project initially documented cash loans made to individual farmers by the Resettlement Administration and the construction of planned suburban communities. The second stage focused on the lives of sharecroppers in the South and migratory agricultural workers in the midwestern and western states. As the scope of the project expanded, the photographers turned to recording both rural and urban conditions throughout the United States as well as mobilization efforts for World War II.

Only he can understand what a farm is, what a country is, who shall have sacrificed part of himself to his farm or country, fought to save it, struggled to make it beautiful. Only then will the love of farm or country fill his heart.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery quotes

Allie Mae Burroughs

An early government photo project was the first to take advantage of Kodak’s revolutionary color film, which has ceased production recently.

According to The Kodachrome Project:

From 1939-1945, photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI) photographed our America in one of her darkest yet remarkable periods. They spent countless hours photographing scenes and portraits that visually embraced the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations, the nation’s subsequent economic recovery and industrial growth, and the country’s great mobilization for World War II. Some of these images, some 160,000 black and white and 1,600 in color can be seen on the website of the Library of Congress. Many went on to appear in a book released in 2004 called “Bound for Glory: America in Color 1939-43” and are part of a permanent online exhibit.

1939 Oct.

Photographer: Dorothea Lange

Part of: Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, DC 20540 USA