How to Make Felted Acorns

Supplies needed:  

Acorn tops

Wool for felting

Felting needle

Foam felting pad

Hot glue gun

I have a carpet of acorns on my lawn every autumn.

I bet you do too!

If so,  don't throw all of them away during your fall clean-up.

Instead, gather a lot of the acorn caps for this fun project!

Acorn caps come in all shapes and sizes.  Many are single caps, but  you may also find two, three or even four caps on a single stem.

Often the acorn caps are damp after being in the grass, so it is a good idea to dry them out in a warm oven (200 degrees F) so they don't get moldy when in storage.  After they are dry, you can also spray them with polyurethane to help preserve them, but this is optional.

To make felted acorns, you need wool.

I get mine online at Felt Alive.

You also need a felting needle.

Felting needles are not smooth needles.  They are made with tiny barbs on the sides so they pull the wool fibers together.

A foam felting pad is also nice to use so your needle can go all the way through without hitting a hard surface.

All supplies can be purchased at Felt Alive.  Your local craft store may have felting supplies, but probably not the variety that online stores offer.

First, take a roll of wool and pull off a small bunch to make one acorn.

You don't need to be exact.  You will be making a lot of them, and the acorn caps vary greatly in size.  After they are done, you will match the wool acorn body to the right size cap.

With your fingers, form the wool into a pretty firm ball.

With the ball resting on the foam pad, poke the felting needle in and out,

moving the wool around so you hit all sides.  As you do this,  you will notice the wool begin to stay together as the barbs of the needle do their work to connect the fibers.  Be careful not to poke your fingers with the needle - it hurts!

When you're done, the ball will look like this.  It will still be airy at this point, but definitely holds its shape.

Keep going and make a lot of wool balls of different colors, some smaller and some bigger.

I find it's easy to do this while I'm watching TV at night.

After you have a lot of balls made, the next step is to wash them.

I like the put them in a mesh bag so they stay together in the washing machine.  If you don't have a mesh bag you can also put them inside socks.   

Using laundry detergent,  wash them in hot water for a normal cycle.  It's good to put them in with other clothes because the friction helps with the felting process.

When the wash is done,  take them out and you will see that they have been felted. 

They will be smaller and much more dense.  If you want, you could put them in with another load of wash to felt them even more.

After washing, I spread them out on a towel to air dry.  If some of them are misshapen, it is easy to squeeze them back to the right shape when they are wet.  You might want some round, and some with a more oval shape.

After they are dry, get out your hot glue gun to put them together.

Match the balls to fit the acorn caps.  Put a glob of hot blue into the cap and push the felted ball inside.

I displayed mine on a wooden platter in the center if my dining room table last winter.  They are very attractive and made me happy whenever I looked at them!

You can also buy these already made on Etsy, but you're going to pay about $2.00 for a single acorn!

 Here are some variations that I found on Etsy.

The acorn tops were sprayed with a glitter paint.

Twine was attached to make hanging ornaments.

I hope you likes this tutorial and make some yourself.

They also make great gifts!

Death with Dignity

Months can go by without remembering.

I think it was triggered by the news story of Brittany Maynard's "death with dignity"  in Oregon.

I was fortunate to be present during the deaths of the two people who gave me life.

My mom's dying moments came as she was literally wasting away with no hope of recovery.  She had been unconscious.  Her will to live was gone long before medical technology let her go.

There was never a lack of desire to live in the case of my dad.  He was a fighter.  Nothing could ever stop him when he thought he could accomplish something.  Deep down I believed,  despite the odds,  if anyone could come back to full health,  it would be my dad.

On the day of his passing,  he was supposed to fly home with us to Vermont,  but complications forced him back to the hospital.  Late that evening,  he deteriorated quickly and was moved to the ICU.  My brother, niece and I were brought to his room to say our good-byes.   He was wearing a negative pressure mask on his face and was unable to talk, so his eyes would have to do the talking.

It was strange, because I didn't know if HE knew he was dying.   Knowing my dad,  maybe he thought this was just another bump in the road.  What do you say at times like this?  Naturally we held his hands and told him we loved him.  He looked at each of us and I could tell he wanted to talk. Then I said to him "Dad, tell Mom I love her and miss her".    Looking into his eyes,  I saw them fill and tears rolled down his cheeks.  He knew.  After listening on speakerphone to all of his children and grandchildren tell him how much they love him,  he slipped away.

A different example of death with dignity.

Getting Things Off the Cloud

My iCloud storage has filled up, so I backed up the photos on my iPhone today to get them off the cloud and onto my hard drive.  It's been two years since I cleaned it off last, and it was so much fun looking back and remembering the not-so-memorable little moments from the past years.

When you take a picture with a camera phone, it has a whole
different quality than those taken with a real camera.

Most often pictures are not exceptional in composition or image quality, but they have a special quality nonetheless.

People are more relaxed in phone pictures.  Pictures are mostly taken without a lot of planning or worrying how you look.

Many of the pictures on my phone were sent to me by my kids to let me know what they are up to.

 Sometimes I send cute pet pictures to the kids...

or pictures of what their dad and I are doing...

Kerry frequently sends pictures of her kitten, Fletcher.  Very frequently.

Adam recently wanted to know if I liked this coat he was thinking of buying...

I sent pictures to my sister and niece to ask their opinion when I was dress shopping last summer...

I can't count the number of times the kids have called for recipes, so I just take a picture of the recipe card and send it along to them in a text...

My phone camera came in handy when I visited my aunt and uncle in Vermont this fall...

We all thought Adam was joking when he texted this picture to all of us last month, but it was for real.

Kerry sent me a picture from the inside of my favorite college bar (hers too!)

and Adam sent this beautiful night scene from Columbia...

I would never know what Mel's new bunny looked like without a texted photo...

And lastly, one of the coolest things I've seen lately.  Adam shops at a Whole Foods in the city where there are two floors.  This is a picture of the side-by-side escalators for people and shopping carts!

My phone is all cleaned off now, 

ready to be filled with more little snippets of my life.

I can't wait to see what they are!

Beautifully Blended

When I was dating my husband back in 1982,  I remember holding hands, walking down the street in Hartford and noticing not-so-nice glares from older women passing by.  I also remember eating pizza in downtown Burlington and hearing people commenting about us in the next booth.

When we were married in 1984,  it had only been 17 years since the Supreme Court decision to legalize interracial marriage in all states (many states had legalized it earlier than this).

Our differences didn't matter to me.  Other's reactions didn't bother me.

Vance was 2nd generation American.  His grandparents were born in Japan, but as far as I was concerned, he was as American as I was.  My grandmother had immigrated from Poland and spoke little English, and my mother's grandparents had come from Ireland.

When we had children,  I don't remember thinking anything about their mixed race.  Their developing identity would include aspects from both cultures.   There were many times when I was with my children without my husband when I was approached by strangers inquiring where my children were adopted from.  It was understandable and didn't really bother me.

We live in a small town where there were very few children that were not caucasian, and very few biracial children.  As far as I could see, they were accepted by the other children and teachers with no racial bias.  It just was not an issue.

Vance's cousins all married caucasians, so the children of his family had a similar look to ours.

I see features from my family too.  The dimples from my mom.  Adam's smile and angular jawline are my dad's.  Annie looks very much like my sister, Lori. 

And Kerry very closely resembles my sister's daughter, Hali.

The kids are all grown up now.

Multiracial families  have become more prominent in the U.S. in the past few decades.  The U.S. Census reports that the percentage of interracial couples grew by 32 percent between 2000 and 2010.

The faces of mixed-race America are in politics, business, sports, movies, TV and advertising.

Yet while our nation is increasingly diverse, there are still factors that can leave kids wondering where they fit in.  One of my children struggles when faced with the choice of "Asian" or "Caucasian" on standardized tests, and feels uncomfortable when asked "What are you?"

I have always thought of my children as both Asian and Caucasian.

But in reality they are neither.

They are not really Caucasian and not really Asian.  

I don't believe the question, "What are you" is meant in a derogatory manner.  It used to be the norm that you could identify a person's heritage pretty easily.  Biracial features disrupt our expectations.  We can no longer slot people into familiar categories.  We are not used to seeing those eyes with that hair or nose.

I've read that as biracial children get older, some identify more with one race than the other, often due to which side of the family they are closer to or where their loyalties lie.  Some cannot identify with either cultures.  Many, though, celebrate their mixed race heritage.

Growing up,  I always felt there was a big difference between my mother's very Irish family and my father's very Polish family.  I know that I have characteristics of both and I have never felt torn to identify with one more than the other.  Is it so different for my kids? 

It may be hard on my kids sometimes, and I hope they come to terms with their heritage in their own ways.

I look at my kids, though, and know only one thing.

They are beautifully blended.