diy : sea treasures candle jars

On my recent trip to Korea, we were constantly by the seaside since S.Korea is a peninsula! I absolutely loveeee the ocean and warm sandy beaches, so this was just heaven to me. One morning in Busan, Caleb and I spent a relaxing morning walking along the beach and we started to collect pretty little shells that caught our eyes and I absolutely fell in love with seaglass. I know, I know....it comes from old beer bottles that people threw away, but seriously, it is beautiful!

I love all the different shades of the ocean that I found in my collection of seaglass and it looks lovely in this super simple and cost-effective way of remembering a special trip.

{  i  n  s  t  r  u  c  t  i  o  n  s  }

1. collect seaglass, seashells, or any other sea treasures you come across while enjoying the seaside! 

2. take your glass jars, fill them up with your seaside treasures and place a tea light in the centre

aaaand that's it! enjoy your pretty souvenir at home!

p.s.  ♥ clara

tasty tuesday: raspberry ice cream

Here in Abbotsford we had a crazy mini heat wave for about a week and a half.  When the temperature hit 30 celsius, we knew it was time to break out the ice cream maker!

This heat wave lined up well with the first meeting of the "Not So Ladies' Book Club" (you may remember this silly group from our homemade s'mores posts!  It's a club that went from a ladies' book club, to a club that included lots of boys, and rarely any books).

And since I (Jordyn) had missed my good friend Joel's birthday party a couple weeks ago, I thought I would make it up to him by making raspberry ice cream!  I came up with this recipe for his birthday last year. He had a big ice cream party, and raspberries are his favourite!  It was the perfect reason to make a big batch of ice cream. 

While we do live on a raspberry farm, fresh raspberries are still about a month away.  But we used the next best thing - our own berries which we froze last summer.  They still taste amazing!

As you can tell the berries in the photo above are a little frosty, if ice cream isn't your deal, these berries make a great snack on their own!  Pop a few into your mouth and you are good to go!

Raspberry Ice Cream

Ingredients:
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
4 cups milk (we used 2% you could use 1% or skim, but it won't be as creamy)
5 cups whipping cream
1/4 cup vanilla
4 cups raspberries  (or 1 1/2 cups raspberry purée)
1/2 tsp salt

*Ice and coarse salt - this will be needed for the ice cream maker



Directions:
Raspberry Purée:
1.  Blend all 4 cups of raspberries in a blender.
2.  Strain out all of the seeds.
3.  You should be left with about 1 1/2 cups of raspberry purée.

Ice Cream:
1.  Beat eggs in a large bowl.
2.  Gradually incorporate sugar.
3.  Add the rest of the ingredients (including raspberry purée, but NOT ice or coarse salt) and mix well.
4.  Place mixture in the barrel of your ice cream maker, and follow manufacturer's instructions.  This will include layering ice and salt around the edges of the ice cream maker.  Ours called for about 2 inches of ice, and then 1/2 cup of salt, repeated until the ice reached the top of the maker.  Then we attached the motor, and let it run for about 40 mins.  We added more ice about half way through.  On our machine you know the ice cream is finished when the motor stops running.  Yours may be different!

This ice cream comes out so velvety and smooth!  The first bite is always amazing. (and the second and the third...)

We figured that a raspberry sauce would go perfectly with the raspberry ice cream!  For the sauce we just heated about about 2 cups of frozen raspberries with 1/3 cup of sugar, and when it had simmered for a bit strained all the seeds out.

Other toppings that really complement the raspberry flavour are chocolate sauce/chips and toasted almonds. 

Using the ice cream maker is always fun, and we really want to experiment with different recipes and flavours over summer!  We were thinking Chocolate Peanut Butter, or perhaps Salted Caramel Swirl?

Do we have any volunteers for taste testers? 

p.s.  ♥ jordyn & kelsey

weekly wrap-up: snapshots of Korea

As most of you know, I've been traveling and adventuring South Korea with my hubby for the past two weeks! While I'm not fully over jetlag (I only just got home late last night!), I couldn't wait to share some snapshots of our trip.

And I had to include this last photo of Caleb, because it's got a hilarious story behind it. The men he's surrounded by are actually guards for S. Korea's President. Caleb was seriously itching to get a photo with these guys, so we asked, not thinking they would say yes, but they were totally down and so excited to pose with Cay! They told us that while they're normally not allowed to interact with people if it doesn't concern security, because the President happened to be in the US, that they'd let this pass once. So here's my favourite photo of Cay, posing with the President's security guards :) 

p.s.  ♥ clara

outfit post: flowers and a frock

Sometimes I have a Hermione kind of hair day.

My hair is naturally wavy, so I usually just touch up the curls around my face and that's it!  But....when it rains, or is super humid, my poor hair tends to frizz and puff up a bit.  haha.  That's what's happening in these photos, oh well!

Now this is basically my Summer uniform when I'm not working on the farm.  A dress and a denim jacket!  So easy, but still cute.

dress + jacket: aeo // purse: one fated knight (this is the one I won in a fb contest! score.) // shoes: shine

I am so excited for this upcoming Summer.  My mom is an avid gardener, and has been working hard planting and tending to her flower beds in the past couple weeks!  We have the prettiest backyard, and I can't wait to share more photos of it in the coming months.  It feels good to be home.

p.s.  ♥ kelsey