A Nature Shelf

The irony of my life really amuses me sometimes! I strive to live a simple, uncluttered life, and yet I set myself up to do things that help create an inherently un-simple life!

Like my Nature Shelf.

This was a lovely feature of our home, and one that my three Little Ones really enjoy. But, truth be know, it was becoming a source of much stress for me. I was rushing to switch out the shelf, or staying up late to make something for it, and generally spending too much time on it.

So I stopped!

I should not have been so surprised, but all three Little Ones still enjoyed looking at it, and The Little Guy still stopped by to talk to the Fairies there on a daily basis, even though it didn't change at all for nearly three months. The earth kept spinning, despite the fact that I was not changing the shelf on a weekly basis ;-)

It is okay.

My plan going forward is to make changes on a much slower basis, maybe changing it out completely with the change of each season, which feels much more reasonable. I rather like the acknowledgement of the seasonal changes, as opposed to the monthly calendar.

So here is our Spring Shelf; the silk reminds me of the lovely cherry blossom petals so famous in the mid-Atlantic area. The toadstool was found at the bottom of a storage box, a forgotten trinket. The Little Guy immediately presented it to the Gnomes and Fairies, who apparently love it!

And like a lot of things that we release, letting go of the need to do this so frequently, as just felt like a HUGE weight rolling off my shoulders.

A deep breathe ... and the world is still spinning!


Are you doing anything in your home to reflect the outdoor season? Feel free to share in the comments, or leave a link back to your own blog; I'd love to hear from you!

A Nature Shelf! {week 1, February 2013}

A new month, although not an entirely new look!

We are still enjoying the delights of snow-season here in the mid Atlantic region, so just a bit of a shuffle, and a clean board. The Fairies are so enjoying their snug, warm house, I don't want to disturb things too much.

And what about you? How are you bringing a little of your outside environment into your home? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

A Nature Shelf! {week 4, January 2013}

To round out our snowy themed Nature Shelf for the month of January, the Little Guy was really thrilled to find that the Fairies had built a snowman!

His first obsevation though? "I hope that snowman doesn't melt! He's so close to the lovely warm Fairy House", to which I asked "Is the Fairy House warm?" "Well, of course it's warm Mama, there's smoke coming out of the chimney, so they must have a fire inside"!

Of course!


What are you doing to bring a little of the outside environment into your home? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

Shared on Friday's Nature Table, at The Magic Onions

A Nature Shelf! {week 3, January 2013}

Each week I post new photos of our Nature Shelf (my own little nod at the beautiful Nature Tables that are found in many Waldorf classrooms, schools and homes).

Some of the Nature Tables created and posted on the web are truly spectacular; they are works of art, made of felted wool, plants, both live and dried, wooden houses for fairies and gnomes. Beautiful!

But frankly, I have neither the time, the skills or the energy to make that happen every week.

And the thing is, The Little Guy has just as much fun with the little Nature Shelf I put together for him as I think he would with an elaborate Nature Table.

And that is why I wanted to start posting about my Nature Shelf every week, to show that they don't have to be exquisite, or time consuming, or painstakingly made. All told, I usually spend less than 15 minutes on the Nature Shelf each week, and I am far from a skilled sewer or felter. If I can do this, you can too!

So each week, we add a little something new to the shelf. I always start out with a home dyed play silk as a back drop, and then our Fairy (gingerbread) House.

For the first week, I add Crystals and Rocks (week one represents the Mineral and Crystal Kingdom).

Week two, is for the Plant Kingdom, so I add something representing plants, flowers or trees. Sometimes it will be real, like pine cones or teasels found on a walk, other times it will be made, like the felt holly leaves I made for the December Shelf.

For week three, we include something from the Animal Kingdom; again sometimes I make something, and other times I will use a small toy.

And lastly, week four sees the addition of something from the People or Elemental Being Kingdom. I like to add little homemade Gnomes for this week; they are so so so easy to make (I should add a post about these some day!) The Little Guy just loves to see these little folk!

This being the third week of the month, I added a little creature to the shelf. Here in the Mid Atlantic states we are just beginning to truly see King Winter this week; it is quiet outside, but for the squirrels busy busy busy about their days!

I had half planned to make tiny origami birds to sit on the tree branches, but I'm not a skilled origami maker, and ran out of time, so this little squirrel (from our Spiel Und Holz Birthday Ring) stepped in!


What are you doing this week to bring a little of your outdoor environment into your home? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

Shared on Friday's Nature Table, at The Magic Onions

A Nature Shelf! {week 2, January 2013}

For this week, the second week in the month, we are introducing the Plant Kingdom to the Nature Shelf. And we are truly bringing a little of our outdoor environment inside, with a bare tree! No leaves or buds for us here in Virginia.

The frost on the trees and the smoke coming from the chimney are touches I just couldn't resist adding! Let's hope the Fairies who live on our Nature Shelf like them too :-)


What are you doing this month to bring a little of your outside environment in to your home? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

A Nature Shelf! {week 1, January 2013}

A new year, a new week, a new Nature Shelf!

We've been a little snowflake happy at the Simply Burbs home this past month or so, but they really are just so pretty. Who can resist?!


What are you doing this month to bring some nature into your home this month? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

A Nature Shelf! {week 4, December 2012}

The last Nature Shelf post of the year!

It wasn't until I put this final Shelf together that it struck me that these three Gnomes look like the Three Kings too! I love the serendipity!


What are doing this week to bring a little bit of Nature into your home? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

A Nature Shelf! {week 3, December 2012}

The 'gnomes' have been busy with their everyday lives this past couple of weeks, and got a little behind with keeping up with the Nature Shelf!

I always feel a little guilty for admitting how busy life gets; this blog is supposed to be about living simply. But life with three Little Ones, two working parents and all the busyness of the holiday season, it has been difficult to keep our schedule as Simple as I'd like. Ah well ...

 There have been two additions since I last posted about our Nature Shelf here, with the felt holly and the needle felted mouse.

The Little Guy has been really 'into' mice just recently, so he was thrilled that the gnomes brought a special mouse for the Shelf! He was promptly joined by The Little Guys special mouse toy, Tiptoes (named after Tiptoes Lightly, the lovely fairy in the books by Reg Down).

What have you done to bring a little nature into your home this past couple of weeks? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

A Nature Shelf! {week 1, December 2012}

One of my original intents with posting about our Nature shelf, was to show that a Nature Table/Shelf could be done without a lot of time, money or talent; a little glimpse into the life of a 'real' family, with 'real' obstacles and constraints.

And this being real life,  I fell asleep on Sunday night, the night I switch out the Shelf and write up the blog post, and then forgot to do it on Monday too. So there you go!

This month's shelf is brightened with a lovely window star, made from kite paper. I really love making and decorating our home with these.


And what are you doing this month to bring a little nature into your home? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

A Nature Shelf! {week 4, November 2012}

The last week in November!

We added some sweet autumnal Gnomes to this week's Shelf, keeping our Fairy Turkey company.

What are you doing to bring nature or the seasons into your home? I'd love to hear from you; feel free to share!

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!

A Nature Shelf! {week 1, November 2012}

My goodness! Can it really be November already?!

I purposely started our Nature Shelf to be a little empty this month, because I am anticipating it will get very crowded by the end of the month.

Speaking of crowded, I just had to share something with you.  The Little Guy loves to play silly jokes and tricks, and just recently has discovered the delights of doing thing, and then blaming it on the gnomes. Well, apparently the "gnomes" decided to do a little extra decorating on the Nature shelf over this past week.