A Nature Shelf! {week 2, October 2012}

Pumpkins just exude happiness, don't you think!

Of course, for the October Nature Shelf, we could hardly do something other than pumpkins to represent the plant world, could we?!

These little beauties were found at our local CSA farm; The Little Guy was so excited to bring home these mini pumpkins.


What do you have on your Nature Table this week? what are you doing to bring a little bit of Nature into your home? Feel free to share in the comments below; I'd love to hear from you!

October's Here Again!

Ah - October!

Time for pumpkins and baking, digging out scarves and coats, raking leaves and blustery walks. And it is, indeed, golden!

What does October mean to you? What are you doing to bring a little bit of October-ness into your lives?

A Nature Shelf! {week 1, October 2012}

Ah! - the clean slate of starting a new month!

For this month, I'm planning on embracing Fall, and pumpkins and leaves with our Nature Shelf this month.

So up goes the orange playsilk and the Crystals (the first week of the Nature Shelf represents the mineral world).

And, let's see what 'the gnomes' have in store for next week ;-)


What are you doing to bring Fall into your home? Feel free to share in the comments!

Apple Saucing

A couple of weeks ago, we went apple picking with friends and picked what I thought was quite a conservative amount of apples.

Of course, it is always good to have a bowl of apples on hand for eating, but at this time of year, I always like to take advantage of the seasonal surplus of apples with crockpot apple sauce.

I'm not even sure where I got this recipe, but it is the very essence of simplicity, tastes good whatever type of apple is used, and makes the home smell absolutely divine!


3 lbs of apples, peeled, cored and diced (it usually comes out to 10 large apples if you are averse to getting out your kitchen scales, as I usually am)
1/2 cup of apple juice (although I have also used water in a pinch, and cherry cider too!)
1/4 cup of sugar, maple syrup, honey, sweetener of your choice (you can use more, or less, depending on how sweet you prefer your applesauce)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon all spice

Just mix it all up in your crock pot and cook on low for about 8 hours. You will know it's ready when the sauce breaks up easily as it is stirred; and your home will smell amazing!

At this time of year I always like to keep a batch in the fridge for snacking or as a topping for oatmeal, but I also make sure that we put plenty in the freezer too. Yum!!

An Autumnal Tableau

For special occasions I like to set up little displays for the family to discover, or as my 4 year old son exclaims, "Look what the gnomes have been doing!"

 

For the Autumnal Equinox over the weekend, I made these wool felted acorns and Fall Gnomes. The gnomes were just so easy to make, I really think my four year old could make one - and don't they look sweet?! I found the directions for these over here at the Carrie Logic website - check them out :-)

The acorns were another sweet and easy project. I collected little acorn caps while we were out on our walks (honestly, I think I collected dozens and dozens of them ... and now I'm dreaming up all of the fun things we can do with the ones I have left over after this project!)

To make the little hanging acorns, I started out with a little tuft of wool roving. (This is carded wool; I get mine from Sage Dream Design). I measured out my tuft to be about as long as my pinky finger!

Wrap it around your pinky finger.

Then carefully slide it off, and begin to gentle prick it with your felting needle. (A felting needle is a super-duper sharp needle, with little barbed hooks. These tangle the wool when it is pricked, and make the wool more dense, and matted. Felting needles are SHARP ... please use carefully!)

Start gently pricking all over with your needle, while keeping your little ball in a somewhat spherical shape.

Keep pricking, as it becomes denser and tighter. See the difference between the picture above and the picture below?

I made five little wool roving balls. (There are five of us in the family, so I made five acorns!)

Then I matched up wool balls to acorn caps.

I used my (new) hot glue gun to glue the wool roving ball into the acorn cap (no action shots ... I'm still learning how to use a hot glue gun, and am not feeling comfortable enough to mutli task with it).

 

 I cut five shortish lengths of ribbon (about two inches), and glued them into a loop.

Finally, I glued a little ribbon loop onto the top of each acorn.

And there you go! So simple :-)

Autumn, Good Morning!

I really love this time of year, the sudden slide from hot and lazy summer, to the bright coolness of Fall!