Acorn Garlands

Okay, I admit it. We did these back in October, when acorns were plentiful. But, we still have ours hanging for the Christmas season, and I still think they are beautiful. I have been thinking of adding a couple strands of cranberry garlands to hang with them. And, if you're anything like me, you very well may have a stash of acorns hanging around still that you collected in the Fall.

I first saw acorn garlands on The Magic Onions, and while I love theirs, we made ours a wee bit differently, for a couple reasons. For one thing, they were making theirs to hang on a tree, and ours we hung free, I wanted the acorns to hang upright and in the same direction. I didn't want big gaps between the acorns, because there would be nothing, like foliage, filling them in. The other reason I went with this method was that we had a lot of acorns, and I did not really fancy gluing all their caps on. In addition to that, many of the acorns were very fresh, and so their little hats were still very secure, but I knew as they dried out they wouldn't be. We made some to give as Christmas gifts, and I didn't want them shedding their fruit on unfortunate giftees. 

And so I drilled my holes through the caps, where they punctured through both the cap, and the nut itself. This way, once strung, the twine holds the acorns together. I can even say now that this actually works, since it is a couple months down the line and many of the acorns are loose in their hats now, but they are held fast. This also places most the weight of the acorn below the twine, so that they stay upright.

I set Kaia to work with a big, blunt embroidery needle, threading acorns with wooden beads between them. Make sure you have a good sturdy yarn if you want to use yarn, the acorns get awful heavy and our first garland snapped in the middle the night after we hung it up. After that, we used kitchen twine, and it has held fine.

At 3 years old, Kaia absolutely loved this activity. She liked that she was "sewing", and she really seemed to enjoy the challenge of getting the needle through the little holes. She put three beads between each of her acorns, and concentrated very hard on getting the right number in the right order each time.

She was so very proud of her work!

Katalin gave it the taste test, (not very good,) and of course the chickens had to come see what we were doing and if we would feed it to them.

Kaia even kept on going, threading away, all through me getting Katalin changed, nursed, and down for her nap. I am thinking that I may need to order some wooden acorns that I can drill holes through. A nice bucket of acorns, big wooden beads, yarn, and "needle" would probably go over very well. :)

We put some strands away for Christmas gifting, and hung one up over my kitchen window. I think they are so lovely!

Acorn Wreath Tutorial

We've got a whole lot of acorns and pine cones left over from collecting for the faerie family, so we've been looking for ways to use them! I've seen some acorn wreaths before and liked them, and that seemed a good way to use a bunch. Plus it's too early for my Christmas wreath (which I didn't want to undecorate last year :P) and I am not in the mood for my blueberry twig wreath, it is just too bare for the current bounty! I found this dense foam wreath form at a craft store, but you could probably cheat with anything cylindrical and flexible, and duct tape it together. 

Most of the acorns had lost their hats, but a little dab of hot glue fixed that. In fact, it can sometimes be hard to find acorns with hats. That's okay, just get lots of both and play match up. Kaia enjoyed helping me find hats to fit the acorns, and selecting which acorn ought to be glued on next.

Put a bit of hot glue on the back of the acorn, and start working your way around. I started with the center ring since that will be the most prominent and also tried to alternate the size of my acorns a bit.

I have seen the acorns glued on every which way, but I personally prefer the look of them lined up. Once my center ring was done, I did the two rings on either side, then another ring on the outside of each of those. How many rings you need will depend on the size of both your form and your acorns. Also, beware, apparently cats like to eat acorns? I had no less than three of them attempt to...

Once you've got all your acorns on, you still have a lot of ugly foam (or possibly a length of hose with duct tape, lol) showing through. I dealt with this with a bag of craft moss I had lying around, purchased for an entirely different project that I never finished. Or possibly even started. (That hardly ever happens, I swear...) Alternatively, you could spray paint your form before gluing your acorns and not have to worry about this step. I think it looks pretty nice, though.

I applied the moss by jamming it in to the gaps with a stick, I used no glue. It was springy enough that once in, it expanded and held itself in place. I took it a pinch at a time and poked it into the spaces with my twig. You could try covering your entire form with glue and moss prior to adding the acorns, but I am not sure how well they will stick.

Keep on going until you have all of the form covered. This is a great job to hand off to any willing little ones, Kaia loved doing this bit! :D

For a focal point, I added two small pine cones and a dried Queen Anne's Lace flower. This didn't show up great in the picture for some reason, but you get the idea. I swear it looks much better in person ;) You could add a bow instead if that's your thing, or whatever strikes your fancy.

Not being able to locate my wreath hanger, I instead dug out some raffia and a couple of the flat style of push pins. One tack went in the back of the wreath to loop the raffia around and the second tack I jabbed through the ends of the raffia and into the top edge of the door. I ended up hot gluing the tack in the wreath after the tack slipped out, the wreath fell, and I had to glue some acorns back into place.

And you're ready to show it off :D

The Making of a Faerie Family

 
Kaia spent most the day throwing up (ugh) and we spent a lot of time in the bathroom, curled up in blankets, reading books. She was feeling better come evening, though, so we decided to make a faerie family. First we got everybody ready and went acorn collecting for their little heads.

 

Then we gathered some rocks for the faeries to stand on.

We picked leaves to make the faeries' wings. 

 

After that, Katalin was fast asleep, so Papa took her inside to rest, and Kaia and I headed out back to find the rest of the things we needed. We gathered pine cones for their bodies, more leaves for wings, a few flowers, and small twigs to make arms. We were accompanied by two of our kitties, Olive and Stormy, who love to come along on walks to escort us and scout the perimeters.

 We also found a number of mushrooms that needed close inspectoring!

After playing with  a variety of sticks and then digging in the sand for awhile, we headed back home and spread our treasures out on the table.

 

Then we commenced with the hot gluing.  Kaia picked out the bits, and I glued them together. I even managed to do all of them with only one lasting burn. Those glue guns can be evil and vile!

 

And, voila! A family of faeries. Kaia headed to bed while they were still drying (I sprayed them with fixitif to try and preserve the leaves a bit,) but she spent all morning this morning playing with them. Win! I'm not sure how long the leaves will last this way, but as Fall sets in we will certainly be collecting and pressing many beautiful, colourfully painted leaves that we can use to replace these if necessary.

 

(Thank you Twig and Toadstool for the idea)