Acorns

Somewhere on Pinterest I saw a post about collecting acorns for vase filler.  Well, we have plenty of those!  Most of them were getting crushed in the driveway or buried in the grass.  But up at Highlands, they were falling directly onto the little table where we eat outside.  So I gathered them all up...

Baked them for a little while on very low heat to kill the bugs...

...separated the caps from the nuts...

...and wiped the blobs of sap off the nuts.

Then I just started hot-gluing the caps back on the nuts, to hold them on them more or less permanently.

They were pretty just natural, but I wanted a few of them to stand out.

So I pulled out my metallic gold paint pen and gave some of them some gilt.

I scattered some of them in the dough bowl I have on the bookcase.  I've been putting tealights in the small mercury glass votive cups and lighting them in the evenings.  So pretty and calming.

The gold makes the whole thing shimmer a little in candleglow.

Some of the others are living in a candle and vase in the china cabinet.  I love the combo of gold, crochet, and burlap.  And now that the weather is getting more Fall-like, I find that I am looking forward to the holidays!