Collecting for a centerpiece

Hannah's been bringing her leaf collection to me for the last few days and it's been pretty sad. She's just been getting the green little leaves off our weeping willow tree. So I've been telling her that I'd take her into the woods and show her how to find the really pretty ones. Thursday when they came home from school and the homework was all checked, we decided to go for a hike. I had the idea to scatter real leaves around the table for a ladies' fellowship I was having that night so we went looking for beautiful leaves...they are everywhere around here right now! I can't believe how pretty the colors are this year! Makes me love living here even more!




The fruits of our labor...there are a ton of fallen white birch trees in our woods right now. I got the idea to try to peel some of the bark off for an added accent and the entire piece came off in my hands! So the base fo the centerpiece is a big piece of white birch bark. On my way out of the woods I noticed a big patch of moss growing, and it looked just like the kind in the bags I always buy for flower arranging. I wondered how difficult it would be to pry off the rock it was growing on and was quite surprised that it came off in one huge piece without any extra effort. I loved how it turned out! I usually don't go to this much trouble for the Thursday night prayer and shares, but this was so much fun to put together. I need to do this type of thing more often...I really enjoy it and loved the outcome.