Every year we go to the woods to find a fallen branch, bring it in, hang it in front of a window and decorate it with our fall decorations which include:
jack o lanterns – 2 glass ornaments (traditional Christmas ornaments) and a pumpkin person made of pipe cleaners and a paper jack o lantern head reproduced from a Martha Stewart magazine a few years ago.
a scarecrow or harvest figure – This came on a stick and was meant to be stuck in a plant but I removed the stick and added a hook.
fruit – apples (wooden, ceramic, silk thread), a pomegranate, and a pair of wooden cherries.
nuts – a glass walnut, a glass chestnut and many many acorns – many glass, felted, beaded, ceramic. a Patience Brewster acorn person, a tiny carved wooden acorn bird feeder, and metal. This year I added some glass bead acorns I bought from WhysperFairy.com. She glued acorn tops to faceted beads, I added fishing line loops so I could hang them on the tree.
leaves of many varieties made of metal, fabric, felt, wood, traditional glass ornaments, stained glass and plastic that looks like stained glass. Two with faces!
pine cones – many traditional glass ornaments ones, a straw one and a wooden one from Germany, some I made with cut felt and beads.
devils – one I made of cut felt and a devil black cat ornament.
black cats – in addition to the devil one a small ceramic one and a pipe cleaner one from the same Martha Stewart article as the pumpkin one and a cut felt vintage one (with a crazy smile).
skulls and skeletons – Day of the Dead tin and wooden skeletons, a Day of the Dead head and a Day of the Dead dressed figure, a day of the Dead skeleton mermaid, a cut felt skull I made, a needle felted skeleton I made, a paper day of the Dead skull I made, and a crocheted skull I bought at Sacred Art in Chicago.
crows – one made of pompoms with a very cute hat, and a cut felt one
owls – a cut felt one I made and a small ceramic one both perched on sticks, the wooden one from my daughter and the toilet paper one featured earlier.
a ghost made of a gourd.
a beaded spider – this handcrafted ornament came with the legend of the spider on the Christmas tree but it was black and orange and I think it belongs on the Fall tree.
a turkey, a pheasant, and a deer.
gnomes and fairies – 2 small gnomes I made with hazelnuts and kidney beans wearing little felt coats, another gnome swinging from a mushroom and fall flower fairies I made with beads, fabric leaves and flowers.
pictures – an ornament made of a vintage Halloween card (a cute little girl witch sitting on a pumpkin) and an ornament made with an old fashioned photograph of two girls, a cornucopia, and a collection of the small cards I make each year to attach to little bags of candy I give friends and coworkers – two Day of the Dead pictures, a skull, a Halloween cat, a raven, 2 cats dancing from a vintage Halloween costume, and a witch silhouette. I copy these from books or magazines – this year is an owl, of course!
I think that’s it. Pictures don’t really do it justice but I am going to post a couple.
The family down the road from us has a huge collection of yard inflatables for every season. There would be even more of these Halloween ones if some of them hadn’t been stolen one year.
Did I really post the owl my younger daughter gave me for Halloween without posting the owl my older daughter gave me for my birthday?
I definitely have an owl collection now. The latest owl arrived in a package from Molly along with a Halloween card and Halloween socks. I have been sending my girls holiday socks for years (they wear Halloween socks all October and Christmas socks all December – last year I even found Thanksgiving socks) and sometimes they send them to me. I made felt owls last year (will post a picture as soon as I decorate our Fall branch – planned for Saturday) and Molly found this great one this year. I can’t wait for him and the new toilet paper roll owls to join the Fall decorations.
A few months ago I made owls out of toilet paper rolls with the preschool kids at the YMCA Child Watch. And yesterday I went to a Reuse Rally for the Arts. Among the many things made from recycled materials were owls made out of toilet paper rolls and of course I had to buy one. My new owl crafted by Judy Kahooti is far more evolved than mine. In fact, if she didn’t tell you, you would never know she started with a toilet paper roll! Do you think I’ll find more owls? Or maybe it will be a things made of toilet paper rolls collection! P.S. A few years ago I read an article about someone who collected toilet paper. It can be quite different, in France I think they use wax paper!
Back from vacation and time to incorporate the new purchases. The gourd mask fits in the living room and the pottery tile with bird painting fits in the kitchen with only slight rearranging but the mermaid bathroom is almost full. I think I figured out how to fit in the 2 new pictures and the 2 new ornaments but can it really be true that there isn’t room for any more? And due to Pintrest, I become aware every day that there are mermaid pictures I don’t have!
I took the shuttle to Historic Grapevine yesterday – basically a street filled with gift shops and antique stores but I had to limit myself due to suitcase packing restrictions. I purchased only a small heart ornament for valentine decorating and something else which I can’t share at this time (can you say Christmas present?) Instead I’ll share some thoughts I wrote about Christmas gifting a few years ago:
Our extended family is pretty far flung across the United States and we don’t see them that often but we feel their presence every day through their Christmas presents. I thought it was a coincidence that the words presents and presence sounded the same but, in fact, they do seem to have the same roots. When I stand in my kitchen I feel the presence of my nephew Vince as I look at the first Christmas present he ever sent us, an ornament that was such an attractive shape I hung it in our kitchen rather than on the tree. Hanging right below it is the pottery ornament of our building that my niece Regina made for our first Christmas in our condo. When I make my coffee I scoop it out of a coffee tin given to me by my nephew Greg with a scoop given to me by my brother in law Allen. My sister and brother in law from Seattle have a great love for Alaska inuit art and it seems as if they have given us a piece of themselves every time I look at the inuit design dish towel and potholder hanging in our kitchen. We have a few breadboards now but our favorite is the first one we ever got. It was a gift from my sister in law, Peggy, and it is the perfect size for a loaf of bread – my husband cuts his bread on it every morning. When we look up to see if we are running late the clock we look at is a wonderful one my parents gave us for our first Christmas in our first apartment. And I have only described some of the gifts I can see when I am standing at my sink – my house is full of the meaningful gifts I have received and it is not only the gifts but the memories of those who have given them that enrich our lives.
For me gifts are about connections. Someone was thinking about me when they made or bought a gift and I think about them as I look at, eat, or use the gifts. My mother is from England and when I was a little girl, I didn’t see my English grandmother very often but every Christmas we got one of those “brown paper packages tied up with string” and one of the best parts of Christmas was opening the package to find a beautifully hand knitted gift. Of course, it is not only the presents I have received that remind me of my family’s presence. I also think of them all year as I find or search for the perfect gifts for them.
So I was as horrified as she was when my friend Shannon told me about the tradition in her new husband’s family. On Thanksgiving all the members of his family drew names to determine which one person they would buy their only Christmas present for. A large expensive present, I might add and not really a thoughtful or meaningful one since as soon as the names were drawn people began putting in their orders – “Whoever got me, I want a set of luggage” for example. Since this was my introduction to the concept of name drawing, I had a strong negative reaction when my nephew (of the beautiful Christmas ornament that hangs in my kitchen) and his new wife suggested we draw names instead of getting everyone presents. I think I went on and on about how the tradition is to exchange presents not just to get a present but I don’t think I conveyed that for me the gift is so much more than the present.
It is the connections that are forged when gifts are exchanged that I think is important. One year my daughter gave her young cousin a “cherry” barrette – not expensive at all but it reflected my daughter’s style and I bet her young cousin thought of her every time she wore it. I know my daughter thinks of her cousin as she hangs the handmade star ornament she received in exchange on her Christmas tree each year.
It is important to note that I do not think presents exchanged between extended family members should be expensive and that I think handmade and homemade presents are often the best. One year my sister in law transcribed and typed up her grandmother’s diary for each of her siblings. Now that’s a present! And while I have heard of some interesting alternatives to giving everyone a gift – my nephew’s new wife’s family has a Yankee Swap that sounds like fun. I am glad though that she hasn’t proposed that our family do such a thing since I love getting her homemade apple butter and blueberry jam and thinking of her each time I spread jam on my toast.
Collections and Other Stuff I Like 