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Home Celebrate fall’s apple harvest with recipes from Handmade Charlotte's founders
Celebrate fall’s apple harvest with recipes from Handmade Charlotte’s founders
Apple, pumpkin, and cinnamon everywhere
When Rachel and Jonathan Faucett host an event, you can bet it will be adorable. At their farm in Dallas, Georgia, the husband-and-wife producers of the popular Handmade Charlotte crafting blog and product line invite friends over to celebrate apple season, gathering fruit from their own trees and adding a few bushels from Ellijay, home of the annual Georgia Apple Festival. The setting alone—next to their wildly patterned red-and-white garage—is enough to inspire creativity.
The Faucetts, who have five children, started an Etsy shop in 2009 that sold baby bloomers. They launched the blog one year later. Jonathan named the company after their fourth child, Charlotte, because they seemed to dress her exclusively in handcrafted clothing. The enterprise really took off when Anthropologie discovered the Faucetts online and offered them the opportunity to create a holiday capsule collection in 2011.
Jonathan, a graphic designer by trade, takes most of the photographs, and Rachel is the creative force and brand ambassador. Running one of the nation’s top 20 most influential Pinterest accounts, Rachel and Jonathan often collaborate with other stylists and bloggers, which is how we met.
Fall harvest is one of the family’s favorite excuses for a party. “The orchard on the farm yields bushels and bushels of apples,” says Rachel. “And who doesn’t like apple pie—or apple anything, for that matter?”
Their handpainted garage provides a cheery backdrop. Its rosy pattern was inspired by textiles from an organic children’s apparel company called Winter Water Factory. That line is a side business belonging to their close friend Stefanie Lynen, vice president and design director for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
For her fall festival, Rachel serves seasonal sweets such as cinnamon monkey bread and pumpkin cake, aptly shaped like a real pumpkin. Since Georgia’s autumn weather can be unpredictable, she likes to dish up cider floats, which can be served hot or cold. She offers craft projects for all ages; older children enjoy aiming arrows at apple-shaped targets in the horse paddock. And, of course, costumes are involved—any excuse to play dress up!
The menu: