Image courtesy of Country Living

You may remember a while back we gave you a sneak peek at a shoot happening in the studio… Well, we’re so excited we’re finally be able to make the big reveal and are honored to be featured in this lovely story from Country Living’s December issue, on newsstands now!

We loved sharing the story of our journey as female entrepreneurs of a small business we love with the magazine and hope you’ll enjoy reading it. So interesting to see how much work goes into a magazine shoot, but it was all worth it. What a blast!

Image courtesy of foodnetwork.com

Besides the colorful foliage, another thing I look forward to in Fall is breaking out my favorite recipes and sharing them with family and friends. It’s become such a tradition that some of my recipes have even found their way into an inspired food-themed candle like French Pear (inspired by an apple-pear crisp I’ll mention below) and Pumpkin! The pomander candle is one we’ve based on our Swedish family tradition of scoring oranges with fresh cloves to perfume the house for the holidays. They can be put in a beautiful bowl or tied with red ribbon and hung around the house, and the smell is captured perfectly in our wax rendering!

Right now, we’re making lots of soups with seasonal vegetables to keep warm on chilly days. We are also baking pumpkin bread (both regular and gluten/dairy free versions to accommodate my daughter’s gluten allergy) and enjoying hot apple cider. I also just made a delicious apple pear crisp created by one of our favorite cooks, Ina Garten!

I thought you might like to see some of my recipes and I’d love to see yours as well! Here are a few of our favorites:

Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread

• 1/2 cup butter or vegetarian substitute for non-dairy
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin
• 2 cups gluten-free flour, blend
• 1.5 cups white rice flour,1.5 cups sorghum flour, .5 cups tapioca starch, 4 tsp baking powder, 2 tsp xanthan gum
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions: Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees, and lightly grease a bread pan. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, mixing well after each one. Add Vanilla and pumpkin and mix until well-blended. In a separate bowl, mix remaining dry ingredients. Gradually add flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture and stir until combined. Be careful not to over-mix. Pour into prepared bread pan and bake one hour to one hour and ten minutes. ENJOY!

And here’s the recipe from Ina Garten that I used to make the Apple Pear Crisp. I used the gluten-free flour mix above in place of the multipurpose flour for Gluten Free and substituted the vegan butter for real butter. It is delicious! I also reduced the amount of sugar in the apple/pear mix to half because the fruit should be nice and ripe.

I hope you enjoyed this quick visit to our country kitchen and bon appétit! 

When we got our hands on the new People Country October issue, we were positively glowing by the time we spotted our Cashmere candle listed as one of Martina McBride’s must-haves. Martina is one of our favorites around the office, and having her music on while we work on new blends certainly never hurts in the inspiration department!

We were so excited, we just had to share the news with all of you and hope you’ll check out the new issue of People Country today! And in the meantime, if you want your home to smell like a country crooner’s,  make sure to pick up a Cashmere candle of your own, right here at AshBlue.

image courtesy of facstaff.unca.edu

Lynn and I have shared so many good times on our visits to both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, enjoying fond memories of both coasts. Who could forget the taste of Maine lobster fresh from the ocean or those breathtaking views we glimpsed from the cliffs of HWY 1? Always in motion, the salt water of the ocean is a proven antiseptic and has been used to cleanse and purify for as long as man has existed. This fresh, pure scent inspires the feeling of floating and weightlessness.

Our Ocean candle is available from Juxtaposition Home & Studio.

We were so honored to be featured in Rue Magazine’s beautiful new May/June issue, which hit the web yesterday afternoon.

Our delicate Sweetgrass candle fits right in on page 21, where interior designer Amanda Nisbet pulled together some inspiration for the garden party of her dreams. Don’t you agree?

image courtesy of rue magazine

A big thank you to the team at Rue! You can pick up a Sweetgrass candle of your very own here, and see the full issue of Rue, here.

Mother’s Day is here and I can’t help but reflect on the powerful bonds between mother and daughter. I am fortunate enough here at Linnea’s Lights to work side-by-side with my own mother, Lynn, and today’s celebration got us thinking about some of our other favorite Mother/Daughter teams:

The Tough Cookies: Sophia and Dorothy, The Golden Girls
Sassy, smart and independent, Sophia and Dorothy make quite a pair! They may not always view life in the same way but they are, as the theme song goes, true pals and confidants.

The Country Crooners: Naomi and Wynonna, The Judds
One of the most successful acts in country music history, this passionate duo has always come out on top. Inspiring each other and their fans through the music, the message is clear: Give a Little Love.

The Eccentric Duo: Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, Grey Gardens
Eccentric and stylish, Jackie O’s quirky cousins were made famous in the 1970’s cult-classic documentary film, Grey Gardens. With big dreams and even bigger personalities, it’s hard not to fall in love with this pair of misfits who were all but attached at the hip.

No matter how you’re celebrating or which team you and your mom relate to most, we’re wishing you all a very Happy Mother’s Day!

image courtesy of wallpaperstock.net

When Lynn met Danny, he was a southern gentleman from North Carolina. Together, they looked forward to their frequent trips back South. Their favorite way to pass the time while on vacation was by sitting on rocking chairs, sipping iced tea and enjoying the fresh, southern air. This was Lynn’s special creation, which she made after Danny passed as a lasting way to remember their times together. Intoxicating, powerful and luxuriant, the magnolia flower captures their time together perfectly. Charming and beautiful, this special Magnolia candle blossoms with a hint of southern peach.

Find out for yourself at Number Four Eleven.

image courtesy of flickr.com/photos/17676852@N07/2599615029

I so look forward to the scent of spring meadows after a long winter, as they’re bursting with sweet violets and fresh grass. Culled from this sweet inspiration, this scent is soft & clean. This candle represents the perfect blend of fresh grass & sweet violets.

Pick up Sweetgrass at Mohr & McPherson (Boston, MA).

image courtesy of piyakkar.com

Our family has always loved traveling through the Southwest. Its dusty roads and warm nights never fail to inspire us. Lynn & Danny spent a lot of time there, and I too found myself entranced by the desert blooms while spending time in Tucson. Blue Agave plants can be found down south and though it takes over ten years for the Agave plant to mature, just before it dies the Agave grows a stalk of delicate and intoxicating flowers that perfume the air with a bewitching scent. Medicinal and floral, this candle is about rebirth.

The Willows has the Blue Agave you’re looking for!

image courtesy of abchome.com

We are beyond thrilled to announce that Linnea’s Lights is now available online and in-store at one of our favorite home furnishing mecca’s, ABC Home. Social consciousness is very important to us here, the partnership between Linnea’s Lights and ABC Home delights the philanthropist in us. ABC Home is focused on providing a range of cruelty-free, energy conscious, community made, fair trade, organic and recycled home and lifestyle goods. Linnea’s Lights devotion to great quality and recyclable goods compliments ABC Home’s core business values. However, our similarities do not stop there, both companies’ dedication to social change cannot be ignored. Linnea’s Lights has donated portions of their profits towards causes such as autism awareness (Kyle’s Treehouse), breast cancer awareness (Susan G. Komen fund), heart health (Go Red for Women) and the Southhampton Fresh Air Home for Physically Challenged Youth. For ABC Home, their platform for social change comes in the form of their charity the ABC Home & Planet Foundation, focused on “giving gifts of transparency in their intention”. ABC Home and their customers gift to charities such as Africa AIDS Response, Housing Works, Women for Afghan Women, and the Greenbelt Movement. visit ABC Home today!