Last week my husband and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary!  It’s hard to believe that a year ago I was immersed in mini-wedding planning.  To celebrate, we had dinner at the very same place where my husband proposed.  I,  finally, got one of our wedding pictures properly framed.  And I even bought a beloved cookbook to honor the occasion (because paper is the traditional first anniversary gift, right?).

Anyway, I remembered that I was going to post some post-wedding, “non-reception” celebratory photos.  Looking through them, I don’t have very many with actual people; I think I was too busy having a blast to take many photos which often happens!  So, I’m just going to post some of my more craft-related ones.

These pics are from non-reception #1 which took place at our home last October.  Rather, they were taken during preparations before anyone showed up.

Since it was October I wanted a slightly spooky theme but not in a costume-party kind of way (see our party invitations here).  The colors were black, white, silver, pink and orange.  In the photo, above, you can see our pretty bunting crafted with paper doilies, silver glitter card stock letters and black & white striped twine.  The wee cake is pre-wedding topper (silvery glitter initials much like the ones used in the bunting).  Originally I wanted to make a larger 2-tiered cake but became petrified by the thought as I’ve never made one.  But a sweet little cake plus cupcakes galore did the trick.  (By the way, the frosting was pearly and marshmallow-y, while the cake was yellow with chocolate chips.  So good!)

My lovely friend Kara, who came down for the weekend, was very kind and totally game for any party-decorating ideas I threw her way including decorating our high ceilings with paper streamers.

The mantle was decorated with various pumpkins, candles and a fabric-covered accordion-style scrapbook filled with photos from the wedding, backed with craft paper I printed and designed myself.  The plastic cauldron on the coffee table was later filled with candy for the young and young at heart.  (We did have real food, I swear, like cheese and dip and charcuterie, but those things were set out just before people arrived.)

Kara and I spent the previous night making these fun cupcake toppers with Victorian clip art butterflies in October-ish colors.  We (and by we, I mean Kara) put that scalloped paper punch to good use!

Oh, I can almost taste those cupcakes!

a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_M5dKBd5_Vfk/RxuN1eIkiGI/AAAAAAAAAEU/3YOjJFgl3WA/s1600-h/apple-crisp.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_M5dKBd5_Vfk/RxuN1eIkiGI/AAAAAAAAAEU/3YOjJFgl3WA/s400/apple-crisp.jpg” alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5123844950825666658″ border=”0″ //abr /It does not feel like fall in SoCal, but it smells like it. At least in my kitchen it does. Saturday evening was a blissful trip through domesticity. A few loads of laundry and some autumn-inspired cooking. I like to tell myself that apple crisp is a healthy dessert, as long as you include lots of yummy Granny Smith apples (I like my apple desserts tangy), rolled oats and easy on the dark brown sugar. Oh, and throw a few chopped walnuts on top while you’re at it. I also prepped my Lyonnaise egg salad last night: medium-boiled the eggs and fried up the span style=”font-style: italic;”lardons/span (in my case, thick cut bacon). Perhaps, I’ll even stop by the store again today, to pick up a few things to make some roast sweet potato and acorn squash soup.br /br /a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/faeriefurballs/1675665682/” title=”Photo Sharing”img src=”http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2144/1675665682_9dd6fdc3e1_o.jpg” alt=”Pumpkins 2007″ height=”533″ width=”400″ //abr /br /And we got our pumpkins! Green is my favorite. It’s so, I don’t know, ghoulish. Here’s the one from last year:br /br /a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/faeriefurballs/287969276/” title=”Photo Sharing”img src=”http://farm1.static.flickr.com/104/287969276_532ac6967d_o.jpg” alt=”pumpkin-legs” height=”332″ width=”400″ //abr /br /We also got an little white and orange-striped one and a tiny orange one. They’re up on the mantle now. Our lovely, oyster-colored sofa came this past week and the place is really starting to feel like home. Once we get the mirror up over the fireplace, I’ll have to show you some pics.br /br /Ok, I have some crafting to do. Looking at the calendar this morning, I realized I’m a little behind in my, err, time-sensitive craft-making so I’d better jump on that.br /br /Happy Sunday!