Once again, we pulled out our hole punch and glitter glue:
Decorated some of the leaves with the kids' monograms, crosses, glitter dots, paint ... and left some plain:
Then we punched holes, threaded gold string and decorated the ficus as if it were changing colors with the season:
Kind of brightens up that corner a bit!
As an update to my little chestnut bowl post ... my kids have taken a liking to coloring the tops of them!! Every time they have the markers out, a few more get "dressed up!"
When our leaves were good and dry, we sorted them by size. The kids love to be involved ... be sure to have extras so you don't mind some getting cracked! I punched two 1/4 inch holes in each leaf. Remember not to get your dry, cracked, half-gone-nail-polish thumb in the shot when photographing this step for the world wide web:
I then threaded a burgundy satin cord through about 20 medium sized red maple leaves:
I chose to embellish my word banner with the word "BLESSED." I can always use a good reminder to be appreciate for God's many blessings to our family. I went, as usual, with the easiest thing I had on hand - gold Glitter Glue. Quick and fail-proof, but you can use real glitter if you don't mind the mess. When I use glitter glue, I'm generous, but not too gloppy, as it shrinks up while it dries. These letters will be flat when fully dry:
Here's how my B-L-E-S-S-E-D banner letters turned out:
I laid more of the leaves on the top of the mantel. Then decorated with freshly gathered pine cones and chestnuts:
This should be nice through Thanksgiving, after which the Christmas decorating transformations start! Enjoy and let me know what you're doing with your dried leaves this year! ... and be blessed!
We "wrapped" the green square bowl with ribbons and a little paper tag I designed and printed on the computer - "Blessings of the Harvest."
A few simple materials is all that's needed:
And you have another inspiring autumn accent for your home:
This would also be a cute housewarming or hostess gift! Now, keep gathering those colorful fall leaves - I've dressed up my mantel with more of mine and I'll show you next time!
Since she's a healthy, ingredient-reader kind of girl, we baked oatmeal chocolate chip muffins and decorated them with a little more melted dark chocolate -- spelling out her name with one letter on top of each muffin:
Our freshly-pressed red maple and yellow oak leaves gave our tray a festive, fun, fall feeling. :-)
And, of course, my little artist decorated a rainbow-colored leaf card to go along with our treats!
Here's the recipe I used for
... ribbon and one of those cute metal craft tags:
Here are my simple supplies: tall cylinder vase, wheat stalks, light cinnamon wired satin ribbon and metal tag inscribed with the word "faith" (not shown.)
I wrapped the ribbon around the base of the vase several times to create a little muff. I twisted it in the back near the top to hold it in position, then looped the ends through the tag in front.
Now, I think I need to go buy another bunch of the wheat stalks to fill this in a bit:
Meanwhile, it's making a cute centerpiece on my dining table ... a nice replacement for the "flowering" plant that didn't flower very much with my black thumb in charge and whose dried carcass easily crumbled into the garbage... let's keep the mums in our prayers, kay? :-)
