paint cut paste

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.

in creating our fall mantel (after plenty of pinterest research, of course) i decided we needed an indoor autumn wreath. i scored a really cool paned window at the salvage yard a couple of weeks ago, and it was begging for a little adornment. i’ve seen these cute little felt flowers all over the internet lately, and thought we’d give them a shot.

i purchased a $4 grapevine wreath from michael’s as the base. decor-wise, i straddle the line (not so elegantly) between rustic and modern, and the grapevine wreaths are definitely on the earthier side of things. i was hoping some sleek felt spirals would make them somehow more chic. N helped me to select some autumn colors of felt at michael’s, too. we decided to stay with just three colors. she had fun helping out in the whole process, which helps her to take pride in her creations as part of our home.

though i had seen the felt flowers around the blogosphere, i wasn’t quite sure where i first saw/pinned them and how to begin. after i conducted a search for a video tutorial, i coincidentally landed on my high school friend, beth’s, AMAZING blog, Home Stories A2Z, and she taught me and N how to do it! love that!

we followed beth’s clear directions, and it was suuuuper simple. N even made a flower of her own (but i did the hot glue part, of course.)

the flowers turned out rather cute! (i can see how it could get addictive… i now want to make N a headband with smaller versions of these on it!)

now to figure out the rest of the mantel… my painted pumpkin project for halloweening the mantel has been a total craft-fail so far. i’ll share about that soon…

a work in progress...

do you do a fall mantel or halloween mantel or switch it up? what’s warming your hearth this season?

with thanksgiving upon us, our wee little greeting card factory has been in turkey mode. now, we usually don’t send cards for thanksgiving, but N made some cool turkeys this year that were certainly card-worthy. also, we don’t eat turkey for thanksgiving (all vegetarians over here) so we befriend the turkeys on thanksgiving… and apparently we keep them safe at our house..? oh, read on.

these handprint turkeys had be at “gobble gobble” when they came home with N from preschool.

i love the multi-colored tail feathers and the wattle detail.

this is such a simple, yet adorable, project for any age! just when we were good and ready to write some sweet notes to family members on the inside of the cards, N decided she wanted to keep them for our fridge at home. she couldn’t part with these turkeys! so she got to work at her art table, drawing new turkeys with crayons on small unlined index cards.

but then, she would only agree to send one of them to gwee (my mom)… she wanted to keep the rest for – you guessed it – the display on our fridge. (we’re having an art-hoarding issue over here.) the red turkey managed to make it into the mailbox with this sweet handwritten (by N) note inside.

it reads: "i am thankful for you! love, N"

at least this is a digital age where the rest of the family can get a really nicely homemade e-card of these turkeys on thanksgiving day! (sorry family and friends, we’re saving turkeys over here… literally!)

i am grateful for you, dear readers.

happy tofurkey day to all!

i’ve seen sooo many cute ideas this season for ways of expressing thanks in a natural and artsy way! who else but the artful parent would present such a cute and clever idea as thanksgiving leaf garland? we had to try it!

first, N and i wandered around the neighborhood trying to find colorful leaves — somewhat of a tall order in these parts of the bay area. (one of the things i miss about the east coast!) we did manage to find some beauties. we got out the big books (art books, of course) and got read to press them.

we placed them in between the books for 24 hours to flatten.

the next day, we had so much fun writing on the leaves with metallic markers all of the things we are thankful for. tip: if you want to preserve the suppleness and color of the leaves, apply 1-2 coats of mod podge to each side after they’ve been pressed, and in this case, after you write on them. i’ll likely post a demo of this process soon.

N came up with lots of things she is thankful for, and we also made some leaves that were just cute designs and patterns.

she loved the leaves when they were finished!

i found a brown satin ribbon in my stash, and hot-glued the leaf stems to the back of the ribbon.

i realize it might be more legible against a plain wall, but i cannot resist hanging the garland in a sunny window in our home.

thankfulness for our two cats

i’m a sucker for the way light filters through beautiful colored leaves (and colorful artwork, for that matter!)

i also would love to try this awesome gratitude tree that i saw on playful learning – maybe next year!  count your blessings this thanksgiving!

one can never have too many halloween decorations, right? (um, yes, one can. but anyway… ) i saw this supercute idea on make and takes and had to try it out with my little one.

make and takes provides the example of making tiny yarn apples, but we opted for pumpkins because, well, halloween is coming and i had a lot of orange yarn to spare.

i cut off a part of a box from our recycling bin (about an inch wide by 3-4 inches long.) we bent the cardboard longways, as it helped out later. N helped me wrap the yarn around the cardboard. we wrapped it about 80 times.

got it wrapped!

then we threaded a piece of green pipe cleaner under the yarn, and twisted it up and around the yarn. we did the same on the opposite side of the cardboard.

i cut the pipe cleaner close at the end that was to be the bottom of the pumpkin. on the other side, i wrapped the pipe cleaner around itself to make a pumpkin stem, and even some spiral tendrils coming off of the top. then just slide the yarn off the cardboard.

cute for decorations, pumpkins for dollhouses, autumn party favors! i think it’d be cute to attach a tag at the top and use them for place-settings for thanksgiving dinner. now i just need some red and green yarn to make those apples!