wreath redo

I made this wreath for Christmas, and I was pleased as punch with how it turned out. It isn't exactly the kind of seasonal decoration you can just put away in a box for the rest of the year, however. It's a tad big, and fragile. Plus I really enjoy looking at it. So, I decided to pull out the Christmas balls in the center and change it up.

I originally thought about making a bunch of different centers that could be easily detached, so I could change them up frequently. A Halloween one, an Easter one, a Thanksgiving one... but as I was putting this new one together, I realized it was way easier to just hot glue it all into place, so I toned down the Easter aspects and made it into more of a general, nature-inspired, all-year-round wreath.

It still needs a bit of filling-in underneath the eggs where you can still see a bit of the tin foil ball that everything is glued to. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and it was oh-so fun going for a walk in the woods to gather the dried reed grass and pinecones. It brought back many happy memories of going on "Nature Hikes" with my parents in the little patch of woods across the street from the house I grew up in. My windowsill and nightstand were always full of rocks, sticks, dried fungus and bullrushes in vases; spoils of the day's adventures. Those walks really cultivated my sense of wonder, something that has really kept me grounded and joyful as an adult.

The patch of woods was surrounded by farmland, and we would always end up wandering the edges of the fields where the grass was long and unkept, random farm junk was abandoned in intriguing piles, and the Rouge Creek wound its way slowly and lazily through on its way down to Lake Ontario. In one particular meadow, there was a wooden door lying on the ground. Year after year it lay there, unchanged, maybe a little more weathered but always there. I would always run over to it, squat down, and stare at it, and my dad would join me and we would talk about where you could get to if you "opened it" and went down, for surely under the door there was a doorway that led somewhere strange and exciting. We never touched the door, that I can remember anyway. I'm glad for that.

I can't wait to take Hunter on his first real Nature Hike, when he can walk and run and dig his hands into the mud, and find wonder everywhere he looks. I hope we find our door, and I can foster the same curious delight in him.