Fall Has Arrived

This is proof that Fall has finally arrived...the week of Christmas.

Hopefully Winter will find its way and give us atleast two days before Spring sprouts.

Leaves

To get into the spirit of Autumn (in record heat in Phoenix) we set out collecting different types of leaves to study. Due to the fact that most tree leaves in Arizona are no bigger than your pinkie nail we had to search pretty hard. We drove down Central where all of the old houses stand and sure enough we found a variety of leaves. Kaleb was a good sport in escorting his sister in her adventure. They loved being outdoors and even played "piggly sticks" like Pooh bear does in the little water ditch that flows in front of the houses.There are so many cute books about the season. It was hard to decide which books to bring home from the library. Of course "Leaf Man" is always a favorite. We piped our own fall trees with leaf sprinkles. These turned out extremely cute. Instead of cupcakes we made cinnamon muffins. It looked more natural but I am sure it had the same sugar content as a frosting cupcake. Oh well. We tried a glue batik of leaves that I saw on That Artist Woman's blog. Daphne and I traced leaves onto muslin. I poured gel glue over the lines and let it dry overnight. Then got everyone to paint the leaves with acrylic paint watered down. It turned out beautiful. I think we might use it on our table as a runner for Thanksgiving. The really cool part about the project is that all of us were successfull. Victoria even did an awesome painting job. It is amazeing what you can do with just a little direction. I didn't even think to be a control freak with this project. Though we did have to run to Michaels and get more green paint.

Art

I figured that even though we won't be seeing cooler temps for a little while longer I decided that maybe we could atleast bring some fall color into our day. Our whole family enjoys painting but we never seem to have enough time to do it. So I got this idea from Thatartistwoman . I could feel myself wanting to be a control freak at any minute but we managed to make it through the project with minimal damage. Victoria's is on the left and she got a little help from me. We were having a little problem with the brown paint being a little too thick. And then I turn my back for a second and she had a whole story going on about how she was hiding in a big pile of leaves and on and on and on. I paniced because I thought for sure any minute she was going to spell her name out right through the middle in dots. I think it is hard for her to understand that less is sometimes better. Kaleb ended up painting two. I think I made him nervous. I decided that Friday probably wasn't a great time to do such a wonderful project. Life has been so stressful with our current situation that it was really hard to just let go and enjoy what was going on. There is a lesson in everything. I told Kaleb that today wasn't necessarily about art...it was more about doing what you want and enjoy doing it. Even if your control freakish mother hovered here and there. I always know when I am doing it and will be the first one to say I need to leave the room. We all laughed and moved on and I went to the grocery store...alone!