pumpkins

October is my favourite month for a couple of reasons.  First, it’s my birthday.  Second it’s Thanksgiving.  Third, brightly coloured orange pumpkins start to show up all over the place making neighbourhoods, farmer’s markets and city streets just a bit livelier. 

Some fun pumpkin facts:

• Pumpkins seem to be North American in their origin belonging to the gourd/squash family of food classification. 
• Out of all seven continents on the globe, only Antarctica is unable to grow pumpkins (I guess they have to import their pumpkins for Halloween). 
• The US produces 1.5 billion pounds of pumpkins a year (that’s a lot of pie potential)
• In the Middle East, pumpkins are used for sweet dishes while in Japan, they are used in savory dishes

Here are some ideas of how to incorporate pumpkins into your event decor from some of the masters in the industry.

velvet pumpkins via house martin

pumpkin pie bites via bakerella

pumpkin center piece via the bride guide by darcy miller

pumpkin with ribbons via goodhousekeeping

And don’t forget a slice of this when you are done admiring the beauty of the pumpkins!

via kate weedie

Emoi Life

store window via btting

store interior via btting

I love product design.  In my past life I must have been a designer.  I take such pleasure in a product’s design, colour, texture and integration of form and function. 

When I was travelling in Hong Kong, around the corner from my hotel in Causewaybay was a store called Emoi Life.  It caught my eye because of its resemblance to the Japanese home/lifestyle store, Muji.  Clean, minimalist aesthetic, Emoi Life products are affordable and fun.  Walking through the store invoked thoughts of if Club Monaco (emoi life uses a lot of black, white and grey), Umbra and Muji got together to produce products, Emoi is what they would look like. It turns out the Emoi Life is a brand from China and they have locations in Shenzhen, Beijing and Hong Kong.  Expand across the Pacific Ocean!  I like your stuff.  They have a blog here if you can read Chinese.

product via btting

A New Domino Replacement

I think more pain was felt in the US than in Canada when Domino magazine closed its doors (thankfully we have House and Home magazine which is a solid alternative!) but a new alternative is here.  I was reading about it on the Ruby PR blog today and after browsing through the pages online, I am happy to report it looks promising.  Check it out here.

via the state of things

via ohellologan

Quick Birthday Dinner Party

I was off in Hong Kong and China the past couple weeks and I am just getting back in the swing of things on my blog.  The weather was fantastic while I was away, hot hot hot and lots of time for exploration around Hong Kong, Beijing and a couple cities in Yunnan province.  Now that I am back I have over 1000 pictures to sort through and I am trying to get my new HK + China finds researched so I can tout some new companies.

For today, a post about a quick birthday dinner party that I caught my attention on the Rock Paper Scissor blog.  Lauren’s story about the meal she whipped up in one hour was touching.  She had a very short time line to work with to organize a birthday party for her friend who was recovering from a cold.  The end result, she did a great job using resources she had at her disposal from her store (fabulous paper store) as well as some outside help from her hubby.  It was a very thoughtful meal and i’m sure any friend would appreciate a special birthday meal like the one that was put together below.

One Hour Dinner from Rock Paper Scissor Blog

Apple and a Peach

via icecreamsocial

When I read about this post on blog, icecreamsocial today, I had to share it! 

The designers and the couple getting married picked symbols that charmingly (is that a word?) represented where each person is from, New York (apple) and Georgia (peach).   I like witty humour in invitations.  Not something you see very often.  Clearly much thought and ideation went into creating the finished product.  I think any guest who received the apple + peach invitation would certainly stop, think and smile and look forward to the event!

If you are not familiar with Icecream Social, it is a visual communications design studio duo that produces beautiful paper inviations in New York.  They have a shop on etsy and a blog if you want to see more.