Welcome to Century Farmhouse®!

Thinking Spring in January!

When the snow and sleet and wind create an environment worthy of an Antarctic expedition, my thoughts often turn to spring.  We've had a pretty quiet winter in our corner of Wisconsin, but today the season is upon us and I'm thinking of a brighter, warmer future!

Two events are approaching in April (we are going to be busy!), and the tickets are now on sale for both of them!  If you're in the area, why not join us?

The Chicago Botanic Garden's Antiques & Garden Fair is scheduled for April 20, 21, & 22 at the Garden in Glencoe, IL (north side of Chicago).  If no other one event breathes springtime into my psyche, this one will do it!  See some scenes from last year's show.  If you look carefully at about 2.75 minutes into the video, you'll see our soaps!  Thank you Garden staff and Stella Shows! 

 

 

 

The second April event is a new one - join us at Country Living Fair - Austin, TX - April 27,
28, 29 at the Travis County Expo Center in Austin.  If you've never been to a Country Living Fair, get ready!  It is like walking on the pages of the magazine; meeting editors, seeing gorgeous home exhibits, watching demonstrations, shopping for Country buys, eating fabulous food...Fun!  Watch for a brand-new Texas soap!  

We're excited!  Hope to see you there!

 

See our ad in Where Women Cook!

Nope, Century Farmhouse isn't featured in this magazine - yet - maybe someday, but I don't think we'll be sharing soap recipes for dinner!  If you look carefully though, you'll see our very first ad in a national magazine!  Take a peek at page 133. 

Where Women Cook, and its sister publication, Where Women Create are beautiful, book-sized copies filled to the brim with photos of some very creative women and the spaces in which they work and live.  What is even more exciting is that the articles are written by the women themselves.  The editor-in-chief of both magazines is Jo Packham...who is also the president of The Creative Connection Event.  You might remember that we created two soaps for The Creative Connection: INSPIRE! (2010) and ASPIRE! (2011).

The design of the ad is simple: a beautiful photograph of our soap, a description of the products, and website contact information.  What you probably don't know is how that lovely photo came about...and under what unorthodox circumstances! 

The soap is our Persian Bloom, inspired by a spice recipe for a Middle Eastern koresh (stew) given to me by a friend who loves to cook and bake.  After I made certain that I had all of the spices I wanted to include in the photo, I needed to find the pop of color.  In the middle of winter in Wisconsin, one has to be creative in finding almost-open roses.  How lucky that the florist at our local upscale grocery shop was willing to dig through her "toss" barrel to find nearly-blown red tea roses!  To make this photo even more fun, I styled the soaps and details on my kitchen counter in front of a sunny, south-facing window at early afternoon.  Isn't the lighting great?  Here's the trick...cover the lower half of a double-hung window with two over-lapping white pillowcases to filter the light, tuck black velvet over the lower half of the pillowcases, turn on the light directly overhead and the light over the adjacent stove, make yourself comfortable on a chair with the camera propped just above counter height, point and shoot!  

You can find our ad in the Winter 2012 edition of Where Women Cook, and in the next four editions as well.  The Studio will begin carrying both Where Women Cook and Where Women Create magazines in the very near future.  It can be a little difficult to find these publications in the Midwest, so let me know if you'd like one - I'll send one to you!