Festive Fall Centerpiece

I love all the miniature pumpkins and fancy gourds available this time of year. Instead of a pile of organic squash that start to smell after a couple weeks indoors, I created a craftier version to decorate my house with.

I started each piece by crocheting a flat circle by doubling my stitches each time around, increasing by fewer and fewer stitches until my pumpkin was about halfway done. I then started decreasing my stitch count, creating a flattened sphere shape. I stuffed and finished the pumpkin shape, molded ridges and finished each one with a stem and a curly vine. For the gourds, I made the shape more oblong (switching yarns halfway through) and continued to crochet a long tube for the neck at the end of the piece. They’re pretty easy to figure out, but if you’re not feeling ambitious, pumpkins are available here.

I arranged three pumpkins and two gourds on top of a runner made of felt, swirled a chunky cream scarf along the whole length and voila!

Fall Inspiration

screenshot of the pages of Styled. Magazine

Today I had the good fortune to stumble across Styled. Magazine, an online publication by Victoria Hudgins (of a subtle revelry blog) and throngs of exceedingly talented contributors. Take a moment to page through this lovingly crafted magazine and I guarantee you’ll walk away inspired as I did!

screenshot of the pages of Styled. Magazine

Some may call such devotion to party planning frivolous, but I find that when I put forth a little extra effort—whether it’s picking up fresh flowers on my weekly grocery run or making a well-balanced meal instead of just nuking a lean cuisine—it definitely brightens my day. And if you happen to capture these little bright spots beautifully on camera? All the better.

So dear readers, I hope to be able to include more original content that inspires you here on the 622 blog while continuing to feature beautiful handmade goods and my own work. Here’s to year three at 622 press!

you & me part 3: Reception Décor

I’m not a huge flower person. I appreciate them when they bloom in our yard and all, but I’ve never been one to order flowers just to have them and there’s not a faux flower to be found in my home.

For a while, I was going with floral centerpieces for our wedding because, you know, that’s just what people do. The more I thought about it, the less enthused I became and so I started researching more exciting alternatives. Thank you design*sponge and Martha Stewart!

My solution? A cluster of letterpressed luminaries in the center of each table.

For the cake and gift table, I carried the ampersand theme (distilled from the you & me of our invites) throughout—I even found these great resin ampersands that I painted silver to coordinate.

When guests arrived, they picked up an envelope with their name on it that contained a card letterpress printed with a number, which coordinated with a table, which had the number printed on the luminaries.

Photos by Captured Moments photo & video.