Autumn is here

I came across this blog post and since it seemed to fit my mood of late, I thought I would repost it.   

Autumn is here.  You can tell by the cooler weather, the falling leaves, the harvest of apples and pumpkins, the falling leaves, the shorter amount of daylight, the falling leaves, the Halloween decorations, and, of course, the falling of leaves.   What is also here is seasonal fun.

To me fall is here when I see caramel apples in the grocery store and rows of potted mums near the parking lot.  I love to see the trees change colors.  Where I grew up in Green Bay Wisconsin there was a park behind my Mother’s house.  It was filled with maple trees, which would turn the most beautiful red and gold every year.  I still to this day can’t decided if I liked the color of the trees against a blue clear or gray cloudy sky.  Each sky changed the hue of the leaves just a little. 

I was always thought to be crazy because I enjoy raking leaves.  Still do.  It allowed me to be outdoors in cool crisp weather.  I love the smell of the air while raking – it was fresh and earthy.  And there is something meditative about pulling the rake back and forth as I worked across the lawn.  I love to rake; I hate to bag the leaves.  I always wanted to do what writer and psychologist Leo Buscaglia talked about doing.  He liked walking through piles of leaves so much he wanted to bring them into his house.  It’s not so crazy, he would add, when you think that people bring whole trees into their house at Christmas. So what’s a few leaves.  And as he would say, “I am not asking you to clean them up.”

Autumn provides a wonderful way to have fun.  It is time for outdoor activities now that the heat of summer has passed.  Why do we need to bag up the leaves?  Put them in a big pile in the middle of your yard and jump in them.  Take a handful and throw them up in the air like confetti.  Roll around in them until your hair is tangled in leaves (you might want that as your Halloween costume.)

Of course Halloween is the highlight of autumn fun.   Halloween was originally associated with death and the supernatural, falling on the eve of All Saint’s Day, a holy holiday for Catholics and Anglicans.  Now it is a day of fun and parties and dressing up in costume.  It allows children of all ages to fantasize.  I have never been a costume person but my favorite one was an old sheet and a plastic mask to be a friendly ghost when I was about 7. I have liked ghosts ever since. 

I remember that holiday as one where my mother created my brother Jim and my costumes.  I can see her on our living room floor copying in white paint the design of a skeleton on to a black costume she’d sewn for Jim.  I know it was a lot of work but my guess is that she enjoyed doing that much more than buying a store bought costume.

Autumn and Halloween is when you can have fun and try your hand at something new.  Carve a different face on the pumpkin you bought.  Roast the pumpkin seeds if you have never done that. Try a little bit of costume designing of your own.  Dance a jig in the pile of leaves you have in the back yard (and when you are done, rake them to a corner of the yard and let them decompose through the winter into compost. It will be great for your garden in the spring.) Decorate your house with goblins and ghouls or leaves and gourds.  Try some new apple or pumpkin recipes.  Let the season into your house and life.

Autumn is here and it can be fun.  So try something new and creative.

© 2016, 2019 – Cheryl Fillion

 

It’s Football Season!!

It’s football season.  Anyone who is a fan has been counting down the days since the

Superbowl game.  For me it means getting out my favorite team’s glass and cup to use on game day.  (I am a Green bay Packer fan. Green Bay, Wisconsin is my family’s hometown.)

Recently I bought a set of cookie cutters which included a helmet and football shape.  Now I didn’t buy these cutters for cookies; I bought them for needle felting (See my blog post “Needle Felting in a Cookie Cutter”).  But I began to wonder what other things the cutters could be used for.  

So here are ten ways to use the football and helmet cookie cutters (but any shape and any occasion will work here).

1- Use the shape to needlefelt an ornament or press the cookie cutter into clay for an ornament.

2- Trace the shape onto a blank card and decorate it for an invitation to your football watching party.

3- Trace the shape onto a blank card but leave the shape plain.  Tell your guests they have to bring the card colored or decorated to the party and a prize will be given to the best card.

4- String yarn or a chain through the cookie cutter and wear it as a necklace.

5- Having coloring sheets with the shapes on it for the children or adults to color if the game gets boring or your team is losing.

6- Use the cutter as a template for appliqué, embroidery or coloring on fabric.  (See blog post “CookieCutters are just for Cookies” and “Colored Pencils on Fabric”).

7- Use the cutters to create different shaped deli meats or cheese for your food table

8-Tic Tac Toe game – Create a 9 patch ( a 3 x 3 square grid) with the squares big enough for the cookie cutter shape.  Pick 2 shapes and make five of each.  You can use paper, card stock, felt, or fabric.  You can also use one shape like the helmet and make 5 from 2 different colors.  Use the shapes as you would Xs and Os in a tic tac toe game but instead of marking a paper, you place the shapes on the squares.

9- Use them as napkin holders.  If you have just a couple of sports related cookie cutters, add stars, circles, hearts, fall leaves, whatever might be appropriate or fun.  (If the weather is still warm or even if it isn’t try a snowman).

10- Oh, yeah, and make cookies with the cutters.

Remember what I said in an earlier blog: cookie cutters aren’t just for cookies.  So go have some fun with football or any cookie cutters.

 

©2017, 2019  Cheryl Fillion

Bookmarks as a Group Project

Our Fiber Artist group meets at a library.  It is easy to get to, free to use and more welcoming than a church or someone’s home.  We occasionally try to give back to the library by raising money for their Friends of the Library group which funds many of their programs.  This month we made book marks for the library to give out.   Now to be totally honest we do get public credit for these bookmarks which help us advertise our group. 

As I was making my bookmarks which I geared toward kids, I thought this was a great idea for a scout group or a Sunday school class to do as a simple public service project.  It wouldn’t have to be for a library, it could also be for a class like maybe a first grade class where they are just starting to read.  Or it might also be a great introduction to collage for some afternoon art class.

We started with card stock cut in 2 ¾” strips and decorated them with stickers and ribbon and sequins.  A couple of us added words to encourage reading.

Another member brought some ribbon and a hole punch and added a little bow at the top of their book marks.

Instead of plain card stock you could cut strips from scrapbook paper or wall paper sample sheets.

It was a lot of fun and didn’t take much concentration so we were able to visit and tell stories and talk about books we were reading.  Think of how encouraging this would be for the group making the bookmarks to read more.  Maybe even allow them to keep one of the book marks they made and have them bring it to the next scout or class meeting with a book they are reading. 

 ©2019 Cheryl Fillion

Beginnings

In September of 2016, I started this blog.  I like to post the first blog to remind myself and others that if you want to do something, you have to begin it.   I realized recently that I need this reminder. 


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I have come across two philosophers in my life who have the best advice ever for people exploring their creativity.  The first was a German poet and scientist by the name of Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe who wrote "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." (That quote gives me goosebumps.)


The second philosopher was my nephew, Alex, at the age of five who, when I asked him how we were to make a housecleaning robot he wanted to give his father for Christmas, very blunted told me that "You just do it, Auntie Cheryl." 


Both wise men had a point.  If there is something you want to do, you will never know whether you can do it until you begin it.  Is there some creative technique you want to try but are afraid to?  Just dive in.


Now it is okay to start at the shallow end (sorry, it is hot outside and water metaphors seem cooling to me somehow right now.).  Dip your toes in.  Paint a page of just one color. One color can express any emotion. Write one line to start a poem.  One line can say a lot (Alex had a lot to say with his one line and it has stuck with me for 23 years.)  Sing one note.  A continuous note can be very relaxing to the diaphragm.


 Just begin it. Don't jump from the high dive. Don't plan a gallery show yet.  Don't figure out your office at the Library of Congress for when you are considered the next Poet Laureate.  And the Grammy nominations are already made for this year.  So relax.  All you are doing is beginning.


 And beginnings are wonderful.  There is mystery in them - you aren't quite sure what will happen next.   And there is an adventure in them - traveling to a new area of your heart.   And the excitement of them - you actually did whatever it is you were wanting to begin.


You have had beginnings all of your life.  You survived all of those  - school, college, work, marriage, family.  You can survive this one.  But you have to just begin. As Alex said, "You just do it, Auntie Cheryl."  Who can argue with that?


© 2016, 2019 – Cheryl Fillion