It is October and technically fall although here in NC we are breaking record highs and still dealing with temperatures in the mid 90s. Definitely not fall-like.
Despite the ridiculous temperatures, I am doing all I can to usher in fall – my most very favorite season! I love the colors, the flavors, the clothing styles – and the cool crisp evenings when Mother Nature cooperates.
One of the best things about fall are the leaves! It might be cliche but I don’t really care. I love when the leaves start to change. I love seeing the oranges and reds and yellows mixed in with the browns and even a few still green, leaves hanging on to the last of summer. It is peaceful. Serene. I feel refreshed and renewed with the first sights and feel of autumn!
So, as I said, despite the ridiculous summer temperatures, I am adding touches of fall to my life anyway I can.
I am suffering through the heat and wearing jeans and booties this week. I’m done with shorts and even skirts and flats and certainly open toe shoes!
I have two big beautiful budding red mums on our porch steps.
I have can pumpkin and a couple of butternut squash in my pantry beckoning me to bake something warm and spicy and cozy.
A week before the official calendar start of fall, I woke up to a slightly cooler Saturday morning. I didn’t need a jacket or anything but it was more comfortable outside than it had been and I got my first serious itch for fall. I also had a serious itch to create something. To use my hands and make something, even the simplest of things.
And that is when, somewhat out of the blue, I remembered these leaves. These crisp fall leaves G and I had collected well over 10 years ago when she was in preschool.
We lived in a different house then and we had lots of trees in the front yard and what the girls remember as a “forest” in our backyard. I do not remember the exact details of this leaf scavenger hunt but I imagine it was either a preschool project or possibly a turkey craft we were doing at home (you know the one, the one where you turn a large pinecone into a turkey with colorful leaves as its tail feathers, some googly eyes and a construction paper beak and gobbler).
We collected quite a few leaves that day and pressed them in the pages of what I suppose was the heaviest book I owned at the time – my Complete Guide to Sewing book. And it was there, in those pages of sewing tutorials, those leaves remained and were forgotten a few different times.
I think the first time I remembered the leaves was in packing that home to move into our current home and discovering the leaves as I packed up my sewing stuff which I kept in our bedroom closet. I thought to myself, “we need to do something with these.” But we were packing and moving afterall and so the safest place to keep the leaves was right where they were.
A couple of years ago G got a little sewing machine for Christmas. We spent the entire week or two of Christmas break sewing several little projects. At some point I grabbed my sewing book to look something up and to my surprise, once again, there were the leaves!
The book was put away and the leaves were once again forgotten until this particular Saturday morning. Upon the memory, I went inside and upstairs to check for the book and the condition of the leaves.
It had been 10 years and there the leaves were – still crisp and perfectly pressed and still such beautiful colors! I was delighted, absolutely delighted and inspired and determined I was not going to once again forget those leaves again.
Before the grocery shopping that day I stopped by Dollar Tree and picked up 8 very basic and cheap frames, two each of four different styles and sizes. After getting home and getting the groceries put away, I got to work.
It was a really simple craft, an idea I found on YouTube. Take only the glass from one frame and use it as the backing to the matching frame, with the leaves pressed between the two panes of glass.
The most difficult part of this craft was deciding which leaves to use. G and I had collected quite a few.
Eager to show G, I displayed the frames on the mantle and even switched out the candles from the summer breeze blue to the ombre fall orange and cream. G said she remembered collecting the leaves and putting them in the book. I’m not sure exactly how true that is or how much she remembers but it certainly brought a smile to my face nonetheless.
There are still a few leaves pressed in the pages of the sewing book. Hopefully I won’t forget them again but it might be fun to forget a little, only to rediscover them again, maybe with new inspiration on how to preserve and display a precious memory.