paint cut paste

when i was a little girl, i loved setting up a special little place in my bedroom where i carefully arranged all of my treasures (usually magical stones!) and twigs and leaves i would gather from the yard. at the time, i didn’t call this a “nature table” or an “altar” but essentially, that’s what i was making.

creating sacred space has always been a particular passion of mine, so creating a meaningful altar feels soul-fulfilling for me. an altar is a surface (usually elevated in some way) containing objects of significance and a place to engage in whatever sort of spiritual practice fits for you.

personal altar. autumn 2008

a nature table is a place where the seasons can be observed and honored. for those of us for whom season and earth intersect with our spiritual practice, these can often look similar.

as an art therapist educated at a buddhist-oriented school, who appreciates art as ritual, and has a “buddhish” husband, we keep altars for meditation in our home.

summer 2005, in our meditation room

as ellen dissanyake speaks about, art is about “making special.” she says “this aesthetic ability.. enabled us to ‘bracket off’ the things and activities that were important to our survival, separate them from the mundane, and make them special. we took the objects and practices involved in marriage, birth, death, food production, war and peacemaking and enhanced them to make them more attractive and pleasurable, more intriguing and more memorable. we invented dance, poetry, charms, spells, masks, dress and a multitude of other artifacts to make these associated activities, whether hauling nets or pounding grain, more sensual and enjoyable, to promote cooperation, harmony and unity among group members, and to also enable us to cope with life’s less expected or explicable events.” i feel like altars and nature tables are one very concrete expression of this idea of art as meaning-making or ritual.

altar i created out of scrap wood & fan blades as an art therapy & spirituality project in grad school at naropa, 2004.

in my art therapy practice, i often have something of a nature table going, usually incorporating art materials to invite my clients into the experience of the creative process.

setting in my office circa 2004

when i facilitate an art process or art therapy group, i usually create a sort of altar-like space in the center of the circle. it includes natural objects and the art materials being offered that day.

self-care art therapy group for new moms - fall 2011

my family often creates small birth altars in our home when a close friend is in labor, bringing a baby into the world… keeping a candle lit throughout the birth to send love and light their way. (by the way, i often use my own art on my nature tables, as well as lovely inspiring prints and often these amazing soul cards.)

birth altar for a dear friend. july 2007.

i’ve blogged about how some of my art therapy mentors created these fabulous portable altars in matchboxes.

matchbox altar made for me by my art therapy mentors. spring 2005.

now, as a waldorf momma, ideas about the nature table have been brought from the classroom and into our home through my little N.

nature table set up completely by N - january 2012

i am inspired by so many beautiful nature tables i see around the blogosphere. i am so fond of the seasonal beauty mary beth of salt & chocolate brings into her home. she has an amazing nature table photo set on flickr. there’s also a nice waldorf-inspired group on flickr called “the nature table” with many beautiful images.

spring nature table, 2010

do you keep a nature table or altar? as you can see, they come in various shapes and sizes. they can live at home or at work, be made with your children or alone, small-scale or large, seasonal or not. i would love to see how you express yourselves in this way, so i’ve set up a pinterest board for this purpose. if you’d like to share your altar or nature table, post the link to your blog entry, image, or pin of your table in the comment section of this post. (and i’ll repin it on my board!) let’s inspire each other!

bowl of natural materials for art

we’ve been getting in the holiday spirit over here, making all sorts of fun christmas/solstice decor! as a little impromptu project, N kicked it old skool and created some christmas trees out of pine cones and pom poms the other day.

check out our “two ingredient tuesday” guest post on kiwi crate all about it!

what sorts of holiday decorations have your little ones been making this season?

my husband and i are in the process of creating teeny handmade tokens to serve as prizes in the game room at N’s waldorf school holiday faire in a couple of weeks.

creating handmade treats for little ones is right up my alley. because i have a bunch of random materials overflowing out of our art cabinet, i decided to donate not only our time, but also the materials to create some prizes.

mostly, we created pom pom/felted wool acorns, painted and wax-sealed wooden toys of all shapes, and some mini-pinecone fairies. we had a great time this weekend, as a family, making all sorts of fun little things together from the mish-mash of stuff that was bursting (avalanche style) out of our art stash.

i wasn’t sure if these little tokens would be “big enough” prizes until N confirmed that she’d LOVE to win a wooden heart and a wooden apple if she played a game. and she LOVED these weird looking gnomes i designed from the wooden shape that’s supposed to be a carrot. whew! kids are easy to please…

N even helped to paint a few gnomes

one of my favorite adaptations of the weekend was how we morphed our pinecone fairies from 2009 — this time instead of garlic peel wings (one of my fav art materials!) we used these wooden mustache shapes from our collection of odd wooden doodads for more durable wings. they turned out to be pretty cute with their acorn hats.

i love how each of us got in on the action and created these teeny treats for the kids at school. i spent much of the weekend creating holiday gifts for friends and family, too. i’m launching into total handmade holiday elf mode over here, and it’s not even thanksgiving!

creating garland out of the natural beauty of autumn leaves is always a favorite activity of ours. this time, we made it even more vibrant!

we have gone on many leaf collecting walks around our neighborhood these past few week, and brought home some beauties. we pressed them for about 24 hours or so to flatten them out.

the opportunity to mod podge our autumn leaves passed us by last year somehow, but this year we were able to do so. after the leaves were pressed, i applied a coat of mod podge to each side of each leaf (in the evening – thus the dark photo – sorry.) this preserves the color and returns some suppleness to the leaves — like magic!

notice it doesn't say "modge podge" on the bottle, folks.

once they were dry, N and i got out our wooden beads and some wire to string the garland.

we wrapped each bead through twice, to hold it in place.

we had fun interspersing beads with the leaves, and it looked pretty when finished.

now we have it hanging over our balcony for thanksgiving time… (but secretly, i’m sooo ready for christmas decorations instead!)

while we can choose to include expressions of gratitude in our every day lives, this time of year reminds us to give thanks for all of the blessings we’ve harvested. acknowledging gratitude on a daily basis can help us all to feel more balanced, joyful, and peaceful. it can also aid us attracting the energy of abundance into our lives.

often, in the busy-ness of thanksgiving, the true meaning of the holiday can get lost somewhere between parades of oversized floats and the cranberry sauce. here are a few reminders for expressing gratitude during this season, and carrying it into your every day life.

• gratitude journal: keep a simple book beside your bed where you can jot down three things you are thankful for at the end of each day. (or begin each day with gratitude instead.)

• gratitude blessing at mealtime: before eating dinner on thanksgiving night (or every night, like we do in my house) encourage each family member to share at least one thing they are thankful for from their day.

• gratitude garland: this is a sweet art project N and i made last year (inspired by the artful parent) that uses the beautiful natural materials the earth provides for us. go on a nature walk and collect vibrant fallen leaves. ask each person to write one thing they are thankful for on each leaf (using glittery pens or markers) and string them together by poking wire through them or hot gluing their stems to a lovely ribbon.

• thankfulness jar: start by decorating a jar (a simple ribbon holding an autumn leaf against the jar can be a nice touch) or finding a container you love. count your blessings all month long by writing them on little notes each day and placing them in the jar. spend some time around the thanksgiving table reading the notes of thanks aloud to each other. (from tip junkie)

photo from tip junkie

• gratitude mobile: collect leaves, acorns, pinecones, and string them across a stick or from an embroidery hoop along with lovely papers where you and your children write down the things for which you are thankful. (from rhythm of the home)

photo from rhythm of the home

• expressing thanks: send a handwritten letter or make a phone call to a person for whom you are thankful, expressing the gratitude you feel for them. it will surely brighten their day, and in turn, yours.

i’ll leave you with a quote i enjoy about gratitude by thornton wilder: “we can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”

i’m a grateful for you all, my wonderful readers and blogging community. thank you.

a few evenings ago, we noticed a little bag of silver pendants in our art cabinet that we had yet to use — and i have my friend, rachelle of tinkerlab, to thank for passing them along to us! so, thank you, tinkerfriend, for these great blank “canvases” of the jewelry variety! they provided N and i with some enjoyment, as we decided how we wanted to design our pendants.

N wanted to make a “nature one” and a “beady one.” so we gathered some pebbles and shells from random buckets of beach treasures that are still in our backyard.

then N rooted through my seed bead collection and found some colors she liked.

she arranged the seed beads in the circular metal pendant, and put a white shell in the center of the square one with some pebbles and a few random neutral beads around it.

once she had them arranged how she wanted them, i squirted dimensional magic onto each, and let it dry for 3 hours. after it dried and encrusted all of these jewels to keep them in place, N wore her new beautiful mandala necklace!

and she decided we should give the “nature one” to rachelle and her little artist, N, as a thank you gift.

we are definitely feeling the fall spirit over here! where we live, the leaves are slow to change, but now that it’s november, we are seeing more reds, oranges, and yellows brightening up the landscape. N and i went for a little leaf-hunting walk around the neighborhood the other day, and found a bounty of beauty!

what would you make with these fiery treasures?

also, we recently had a great time creating acorn cap jewels and blogged about them over on kiwi crate. go check out our process… it’s super easy. you can turn this:

into this:

happy fall!!!

now, what to make with those gorgeous leaves…???