A Nature Shelf! {week 2, November 2012}

*Loyal readers may have noticed that there was no Upcycling Sunday post yesterday.
We have had a particularly un-Simple couple of weeks here at the SimplyBurbs home; two teething Little Ones, time-change effected kiddos, My Good Man and I have both been really hectic with work, and I think everyone has been feeling generally run down to boot!
So when it came time to writing up the post for yesterday morning ... I just realized that I could choose to make my life just a little bit simpler, and not do it.
But, I am a fair believer in looking for the gift in even the most challenging of times.  So, out of all of the busyness, stress and un-Simplicity of the last couple of weeks, we have been looking more at how to further Simplify things around here. But more about that another day ... and on to the Nature Shelf!


Fall is in full swing in our part of the country, which means leaves, leaves, leaves!

I had originally planned to knit some beautiful leaves for the Shelf, or press and dry some real ones and dip them in wax ... but as a result of our un-Simple week, time became the biggest deciding factor. So, I used these silk leaves (which I've had for at least a couple of years), taped them onto the Shelf, and there you go. Simple!


What are you doing to bring a little bit of Nature into your home? Feel free to share; 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?

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!