Autumn Leaves
“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
Albert Camus
The falling leaves drift by the window, the autumn leaves of red and gold, I see your lips, the summer kisses, the sunburned hands I used to hold… so sings Sinatra in Autumn Leaves – the great jazz standard – the perfect backdrop to the end of Autumn in Stockholm. The leaves, mostly golden now are signalling that it’s coming to an end and it will only take one swift wind to blow winter in to town.
Some lucky bastards gardening cottage.
The weekend heralded the most superb weather over here, a great reason for us to get out, cross the road and enjoy the forest that lies at our doorstep.
Rugged up, with a cup of take-away tea in hand, we set forth combining two of my favourite things, fall and crafting. We were on the hunt for gorgeous autumn leaves to turn into some fake stain glass windows or wrapping paper.
In the forest across the road there is a koloniområdet – a small lane way of cottages that people own. They are super cute, small and not winter proof, people usually use them during the spring/summer/autumn periods, you are not allowed to live in them, it’s just basically for people who live in city apartments but have a green thumb and a big desire to garden.
I love this area, it is like walking through a story book!
Some of us ate.
Some of us slept.
Some of us just enjoyed the view
Step 1: pick the leaves
Step 2: dry the leaves
Step 3: Iron the leaves between two pieces of wax/sandwich paper that the Super Nanny gives you.
I’m at that really lucky stage of having kids young enough, not to realise how crap at crafting you really are. I’m a good preparer of crafts and a great creative director, however my own pieces come out on a par with my 3 year olds. All the enthusiasm, but it pretty much stops there.
You see, I come from a long line of women great at handicraft; they all can knit, do tapestries, make clothes, make art deco bags from 25, 000 glass beads, decorate cakes like you wouldn’t believe, do intricate crotchet work, make jam and lemon butter, the list goes on. I however, can play the trumpet. That’s it. That’s my only skill set. Give me a glue stick and I’m hopeless. Give me the Brandenburg Concerto and I’ll take a crack at it. Poor children. For the time being, my secret seems to be safe.
What’s more important, the end result or the journey taken?
loulouloves 
Love your work! Being creative director is the most important part. As long as you keep coming up with creative responses to their creative craft, that’s what counts. And another perk of the 3 year old stage is they’re still very gullible (like mummy, in my kids’ cases).
I fear that one day quite soon my creative direction will need to become more passive rather than “active”, just to save face. It’s good to have a support base in this though!
I dunno…I think you’re a pretty top food and wine taster, shopper and director. 😀
And I think that’s where I should focus my skills, where my strengths are.
Absolutely! Happy to be your apprentice should you need one.
I love this craft. It’s a classic and even I could do it. In fact, maybe I will! This is not some frightening Pinterest crap with 32 extendable ideas attached to it to make sure your kid understands “L” is for leaves. It’s just pretty leaves in the window and the process of collecting the leaves was as memorable as making the stained glass. Brilliant!
OMG, is that the next stage? extendable ideas and the alphabet…. that’s adanced crafting which I am sure I’m going to have to bring extended family in to help out!
I love that little kids have no idea how crap you are at anything…. #gullible!
Beautiful pics and how incredibly lovely. I haven’t lived in many places which had a nice Autumn, though Canberra was quite pretty!
Oh and with my levels of crapness I’m loving the gullible stage! Good to hear that Canberra has at least one thing going for it!
In my case, super gullible thank goodness! Glad to hear Canberra has something good going for it:)
The journey taken, in most instances! Your leaves turned stained glass look great! I can’t get my 3yr old to do any craft. It’s just not his personality.
Lucky you then, no messy bits of old leaves with be tramped around your house! But glad you agree, the journey it is!
Wow that was a fast response!
Such lovely photos. And the children…sigh. I’m sure they believe mommy can do anything! 😉
I’m going to try to keep that up for as long as possible!