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Friday, December 6, 2013

Acorn Garland

Happy Saint Nicholas Day! Did you get a treat in your shoe? If you didn't, you better shape up before Christmas! Don't want any coal! For those of you not familiar with the tradition, its basically just a celebration honoring the life of Saint Nicholas on December 6th, which is his feast day. It's great because its a simple reminder that Santa Claus, actually was a real person. One who had a generous and kind heart. And the treat in your shoe is a simple reminder of the generosity and love that he represented. The spirit of the season! So on December 5th, the eve of his feast day, if you leave out your shoe (or stocking) he will leave a treat for you. I believe the shoe part of the tradition started in Europe. I always loved the tradition growing up and I hope to continue it with our girls for many years. 
Lately, I have seen so many cute ways to decorate with acorns, I wanted to gather some of my own for projects. They are so cute! We have tons that fall off the trees right on our street, so we are lucky. If you don't have such luck, I have heard you can buy them off etsy.com. (That place is amazing). I feel like a total dork picking up fallen acorns off the sidewalk outside peoples homes. I'm sure people running and walking by are like, "What the heck is she doing?", "Who is the crazy person picking stuff off the sidewalk?". But I have to! Free craft materials! It always helps to have a child with you too, then you don't look totally crazy.

Anyway. I have a huge bag full of acorns now and I thought they would be the perfect thing to use for my mini tree garland! You could also make this for your normal size Christmas tree, you will just need more ribbon and lots of acorns. One cute idea would be to make a garland with acorns, popcorn and dried cranberries. I made my garland super simple, but you could do so many cute things with them. Here is how I made the garland for my mini Christmas tree.

You will need:
Acorns
Pretty ribbon
Hot glue

1. First make sure all of your acorn caps are secure. They tend to fall off easily, especially if they have fallen from a tree. So I just hot glued the caps on. Then all you do is hot glue the tops to your piece of ribbon. Done! 1 Step. I think that's a first! Hang on your tree.

My little mini tree looks so cute and happy now. I really like the natural look of the plain acorns but there are lots of ways y ou can make them even fancier. Try painting the tops gold, or felting a piece of wool roving for the bottoms of the acorns. If you can get a hold of bigger ones, they make adorable ornaments!

Here are some other ideas for using acorns that I really like.

1. With gold tops
Acorn Ornament idea

2. In jars or vases
More fall vase ideas... Acorns!
Source: buyerselect.com

3. Felted acorns
acorns!
Source: etsy.com

4. As a wreath
Perfect on a white or dark brown wooden door
Source: diycandy.com

Happy Decorating!

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