A dried flower terrarium is a quick and easy way to save beautiful flowers from special occasions without decorating like Morticia Addams. They make great gifts too!

First, here is what the finished product looks like. 

Every once in a while I get flowers for a special occasion. When the flowers are beautiful and when the occasion is particularly important, I like to save the flowers. A few months after graduating from law school, I moved from Berkeley, California to Washington, DC. Before I moved, I made these dried flower terrariums for some special people I built an organization with during law school. 

The flowers came from bouquets these people and my family gave to me for my law school graduation, and I let my giftees know that’s where the flowers came from! 

This is easy. You might have already done it. I dry flowers in a few different ways, and it only takes a few days.

I often hang flowers, especially roses, upside down by taping them to the wall with blue painter’s tape. One purpose of hanging the flowers upside down is to keep them pointing straight up instead of drooping over.

Another option is to put the flowers upright in a vase or cup. Especially for roses, the flowers may droop over the side of the container. I like this look as well, because I can more easily get a view of the pretty top of the flower in the arrangement. 

Finally, I sometimes put the flowers in a shoebox without a lid and set the box on top of an open shelf or a piece of furniture. This is definitely my partner’s favorite method, since I have a tendency to tape flowers to the wall in our kitchen and leave them up for a few weeks.

Any jar would probably be cute for this project. I mostly used jars that I had leftover from beekind honey we bought at the Ferry Building Marketplace in San Francisco. On a side note, I highly recommend the Meadowfoam Honey. It tastes deliciously sweet, a little like marshmallows. You can find it here. I’ve also used empty Nescafe jars.

I removed the jar labels using Goo Gone and cleaned the jars using dish soap. 

This part is pretty easy! I usually hold my flowers up to the jar to get an idea of where to cut them. I try to cut them at various lengths. I also like to have some of the flowers poking out of the top of the jar. But if you aren’t a fan of that idea, you could use burlap and string to give the jar a cute covering. 

For some of the arrangements, I used chopsticks to position the short flowers the way I wanted. I considered using glue to get some of the finicky flowers to stay at their prettiest angle, but I ended up not having to do that.

Try making a dried flower terrarium of your own and share your results in the comments below!

Warm wishes,

Alex

This post is about the cute little pumpkin amigurumi I made for Halloween this year. I am new to amigurumi, and crochet in general, but I truly love it! This pumpkin was my second project. Below I link to the many resources I recently used as a beginner. I used other crafters’ patterns to make this amigurumi.

First, here is what the finished product looks like! It measures 2.75 inches high x 2.25 inches wide. I used wool worsted weight yarn and a 4.5 mm (size 7) hook.

• Reading patterns  (find a guide here)
  
• Mark your rounds  (find tutorial here)
• Count your stitches  (find tutorial here)
• Slip knot  (find tutorial here)
  
• Magic ring  (find tutorial here)
• Crochet under both loops  (find tutorial here)
• Single crochet  (find tutorial here)
• Single crochet increase  (find tutorial here)
• Single crochet decrease  (find tutorial here)
• Double crochet  (find tutorial here)
  
• Half double crochet  (find tutorials here and here)
  
• Crochet chain  (find tutorial here)
  
• Crochet into the chain  (for example, single crochet into the 2nd chain from the hook)  (find tutorial here, a blog post here, and another tutorial with helpful explanations here) 
  
• Crochet into the opposite side of the chain  (find tutorial here)
• Attaching pieces  (find tutorial here)
• Fastening off  (find tutorial here)

A great resource is “A Beginner’s Guide to Amigurumi” by Stacey Trock at freshstitches.com, which you can download for free here. It helps to know when you're watching the tutorials that the "working yarn" is the string that is attached to the yarn ball and the "tail" is the string that dangles loosely.

Also, beginners should note that most amigurumi pieces are made by crocheting in the round, as opposed to crocheting in rows. Your work will naturally turn as you crochet; however, you will not be "turning the work." You turn a work when you reach the end of a straight row, chain one to four stitches, flip the work over, and start to crochet a new row in the opposite direction. There's nothing special you need to know about crocheting in the round except how to start, and that is why I recommend the magic ring tutorial above.

THE BODY:

The video tutorial for the body can be found here. I found it easy to write out the instructions as I followed the video, so I can just use a written pattern next time. 

THE STEM AND LEAF:

The pattern for the stem and the leaf can be downloaded for free here. The thing I love about the leaf is that I get a chance to practice different skills. The leaf involves crocheting into the chain (which I hadn’t used before, because I used the magic ring method), single crochet, double crochet, half double crochet, and crocheting in the opposite side of the chain. I’ve made two leaves now, and I love how perfect they turn out with that cute little dimple in the middle.

Here is a tip for beginners about using the magic ring. Many patterns will read:

With Main Color, chain 2.
Round 1: Single crochet 6 times in 2nd chain from hook.

In my experience, if you use the magic ring, you should replace these steps with the following:

Round 1: Single crochet 6 times in the magic ring, pull on the tail (the piece of yarn that is not attached to the yarn ball) until the ring is closed tightly.

You don’t want to make a chain, because you are making the magic ring instead.

The video tutorial for the body can be found here.
The pattern for the stem and the leaf can be downloaded for free here.
Many amigurumi tips can be found on freshstitches.com here.
A great resource is “A Beginner’s Guide to Amigurumi” by Stacey Trock at freshstitches.com, which you can download for free here.

Try making a little pumpkin of your own and share your results in the comments below!

Warm wishes,

Alex

• Reading patterns  (find a guide here)
  
• Mark your rounds  (find tutorial here)
• Count your stitches  (find tutorial here)
• Slip knot  (find tutorial here)
  
• Magic ring  (find tutorial here)
• Crochet in the back loop  (find tutorial here and an article here) 
• Single crochet  (find tutorial here)
• Single crochet increase  (find tutorial here)
• Single crochet decrease  (find tutorial here)
• Attaching pieces  (find tutorial here)
• Fastening off  (find tutorial here)

A great resource is “A Beginner’s Guide to Amigurumi” by Stacey Trock at freshstitches.com, which you can download for free here. It helps to know when you're watching the tutorials that the "working yarn" is the string that is attached to the yarn ball and the "tail" is the string that dangles loosely.

Also, beginners should note that most amigurumi pieces are made by crocheting in the round, as opposed to crocheting in rows. Your work will naturally turn as you crochet; however, you will not be "turning the work." You turn a work when you reach the end of a straight row, chain one to four stitches, flip the work over, and start to crochet a new row in the opposite direction. There's nothing special you need to know about crocheting in the round except how to start, and that is why I recommend the magic ring tutorial above.

• 5.0 mm (size H or 8) crochet hook  (I got mine here.)
• Tapestry needle  (I got mine here.)
• Stitch marker  (I got mine here.) 
• Yellow yarn  (I got mine here.) 
• White yarn  (I got mine here.)
• 12 mm black plastic eyes  (I got mine here, and here are others I have also used.)
• Stuffing  (I used Crafter's Choice Polyester Fiberfill, which I got here.)
  

For this project, I got most of my materials from a kit I purchased from freshstitches.com here. If I did it over again, I would probably use a smaller hook, maybe a 4.5 mm crochet hook, so that the crocheting would be tighter. On the other hand, working with a larger hook and larger loops was easier for me, considering this was my first project.

The pattern for this project can be purchased here.
Many amigurumi tips can be found on freshstitches.com here.
A great resource is “A Beginner’s Guide to Amigurumi” by Stacey Trock at freshstitches.com, which you can download for free here.