Fall Rustic Cone Trees

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers."

- L.M. Montgomery in "Anne of Green Gables"

 

When the living room mantel got a little addition for fall, the dining room felt left out. I did a little grouping on the buffet.

The big window sill felt rather bare in comparison. I found these ideas (cone trees and pumpkin vases) on Pinterest and thought I could put them together.

I couldn't find mini white pumpkins anywhere so I bought orange pumpkins at the craft store and spray painted them white. I added pussy willow branches in each vase.

I pulled out a candle holder to display the old book cone tree.  The others are canvas and lace ribbon (loops held by quilting pins) and dark brown jute (wrapped with hot glue).

Linking up to some or all of these great blog parties:

Sunday: It's Overflowing; Sunday Showcase at Under the Table and Dreaming;
Monday: Inspire Me Monday at Sand and Sisal; Tutorials and Tips at Home Stories A to Z; Monthly Before and After at Thrifty Decor Chick
Wednesday: Wicked Awesome Wednesday at Handy Man, Crafty Woman; Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts; 
Friday: Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest; Flaunt it Friday at Chic on a Shoestring;

Wood Slice Wreath for Fall

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers."
- L.M. Montgomery in "Anne of Green Gables"

Me too. But my fall decor needed a little refreshing to reflect that. I started with a new wreath for the living room mantel. I used to keep my sheet music wreath on there almost year-round, but I moved it to the dining room during Christmas and liked it so much there that I didn't want to move it back.
I found a bunch of different ideas on what I could do to make a fall wreath. Then Bass showed me a stack of wood slices that he had cut thinking I might want to make coasters. No to the coasters but the slices were perfect to attempt this.
I wiped the slices off and then laid them out on a square of cardboard. I lightly traced around the wreath shape onto the cardboard. I cut out a circle which ended up looking like this.

Then I started gluing the bottom layer onto the cardboard using wood glue.

All together the bottom layer looked like this.

The same process for the top layer yielded this:

To finish it off, I used a staple gun to attach looped up wired ribbon, and hot glue to add berry sprigs, the leaves from the burlap flower, and the burlap flower.

The whole fireplace and mantel:

Flowers in the lantern:

With a dressed-up mantel, the couches' pillow covers felt out of place. A bit of fabric changed it to this:

 I know chevron is kind of over but this orange with a bit of green-ish outline was too cute to resist.

Ahh... Octobers. :)

Linking up to some or all of these great blog parties:

Sunday: It's Overflowing; Sunday Showcase at Under the Table and Dreaming;
Monday: Inspire Me Monday at Sand and Sisal; Tutorials and Tips at Home Stories A to Z; Monthly Before and After at Thrifty Decor Chick
Wednesday: Wicked Awesome Wednesday at Handy Man, Crafty Woman; Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts; 
Friday: Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest; Flaunt it Friday at Chic on a Shoestring;

School Summary - Abe Lincoln and the Civil War

I respectfully ask that you not pin pictures of my children to Pinterest. Thank you!

A Summary of October 5-16
After a very full "break" week, we got right back to it. This time really getting into a lot of history with the Civil War and the causes for it.

Here's what we did:

Things that were scheduled:

Math

Language Arts (Grammar with Writing and Reading for both; Spelling for Soprano)
Tenor had a worksheet on Renaissance instruments for lit.

Soprano did one on secret signs to mark a trail.

Electives:

Greek and Computer Science (Tenor), American Sign Language, Photography, and Sewing (Soprano)

I finally got Soprano's ASL set-up. She goes along to Tenor's taekwondo class each week and work's on it while she's there. For sewing, she finished her first project: a pillowcase that will be a Christmas gift for Tenor.

My Father's World 1850 to Modern Times
We spent these two weeks mostly on the American Civil War. I think it's probably the saddest war in which the United States has been involved, mostly because it was Americans killing Americans.

Bible: This year we will be learning (reviewing) basic Christian beliefs and memorizing key Bible passages. We learned John 11:25-26 and Ephesians 2:8-9. This year's memory work is so much easier than last year's. lol

History and Geography: 

There weren't any hands-on projects that we did for the Civil War. We skipped making hardtack, but they have been working on memorizing either the Gettysburg Address or Oh Captain! My Captain! (They each chose one.)

We ate a plantation style dinner, but not using all the recipes in the book. I bought pre-made fried chicken, made cornbread from a box mix, and skipped the peach ice cream. We tried the sweet potato pie though. A couple thoughts on that: don't try to use whole sweet potatoes. If you do at least peel and dice them first. I tried combining two recipes... the one in the book and one for regular mashed sweet potatoes. It didn't work. The mashed sweet potatoes don't end up with the custardlike consistency you need. Also, if you don't like the taste of molasses, you'll want to decrease the amount called for by quite a bit.

Science:

We're also using the World of Science reading assignments to review what we learned this summer.

Other MFW: 

Music: We finished up our study of Stephen Foster by using the Young Scholar's Guide to Composers. I didn't have a lunchtime playlist for Foster because I don't have any of his music other than the MFW CD.

Art: Just continued on with the scheduled lessons.

Extras:

Web:

You can see them all in my Youtube playlist for weeks 1-16.

There's a couple of Jim Weiss CDs that fit this era.
Underground Railroad Game (#1)
Underground Railroad Game (#2)
Civil War Soldier interactive
Civil War Battles animated
Civil War Casualties infographic
Contents of Lincoln's Pockets
Adventure Tales: Civil War
Events of the Civil War - I thought this would be a great site to use to make a CW timeline
Battles of the Civil War infographic
Battlefield info

Videos:

The Presidents by The History Channel
Animated Hero Classics: Abraham Lincoln by Nest Entertainment
Gettysburg
Gods and Generals
Ladies of Liberty by Learning Our History
Little Women by Turner Entertainment
Red Badge of Courage

Shenandoah

Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman - episode 35 Buffalo Soldiers

Favorite Books: 

Aunt Minnie and the Twister (Kansas) by Mary Prigger
S is for Sunflower (Kansas) by Devin Scillian
Abraham Lincoln by Mike Venezia
Andrew Johnson by Mike Venezia
American Girl Addy books

We finished off our whirlwind study of the Civil War with a visit to Gettysburg.

Cyclorama oil painting of the Battle of Gettysburg

Gen. George Meade of the Union Army

The Eternal Light

Panoramic view of the countryside. Off to the left, way back, is the Eisenhower Farm (Dwight D's home) which became the basis of the national park.

the Pennsylvania Memorial

Passport 2 Purity Trip

I respectfully ask that you not pin pictures of my children to Pinterest. Thank you!

A few years ago we had heard about Family Life's Passport 2 Purity program. It sounded like it was really well put together so we got it. Bass and Tenor had a short weekend away to go through the material. When we were preparing for that trip though, we couldn't find much online about how it actually worked or how other families used it. They still had a great time, and I think it was extremely beneficial to Tenor. Since then, Soprano has been excited for her turn. I don't think she really understood what all we'd be talking about. lol
This past week, while we had a break from school, she and I headed out. (I got permission from my her to share about our trip.)

I'll spare you the details of my multiple attempts to find a suitable location. It seemed like every idea I had ended up not working out, but I finally came up with an itinerary.
We headed north. Our first stop was lunch where I explained a bit about the weekend and gave her the kit's Travel Journal.

 

After lunch, she started session 1 as we traveled on to our first activity together -- mom/daughter pedis.

This activity may have been more for me than for her but she loved her first trip to the spa. :) She said at one point, "I'm getting spoiled; I could get used to this!"

We did the session 1 puzzle activity in the back of the van after our pedis in order to keep things moving. It was probably not the best idea. We managed to complete the activity but we could have gotten more done if the puzzle surface was even, not upholstered. (A few tips for this activity: only start the timer once you've turned all the pieces face up and be sure to practice your puzzle ahead of time to really emphasize the point of the activity.) We packed up our pretty piggies and puzzles and drove the rest of the way to our hotel. Once we settled in, she started session 2. She got the second activity which is when I realized I had forgotten to buy Play-doh. So we got back in the van and went on a scavenger hunt... we ate dinner and found some seriously overpriced fun dough at a dollar store in the area to complete the activity.

A tip for activity 2: don't use the entire can of dough/doh to form your person. It will take to long to fully mix the colors if you do.

We finished up our first day with a swim.

Day 2: Session 3 

and most of 4 before lunch. (Activity 4 tip: practice beforehand. Only fill the balloon up slightly larger than when it's blown up. I filled it, put tape on it, then pierced it.) We took an early swim, headed out for lunch,

and then to the most-anticipated activity of the trip... horseback riding!

My horse crazy girl was beyond excited to finally get to actually ride a horse. Not just be led around in a circle.

Meeting and trying to name all the horses -- she was disappointed to realize they already had names

 

Her horse was ironically named Turbo

We saw wild turkeys and deer right next to the trail!

My horse, Chief

After our ride (while my thighs quivered for the next three hours), we went shopping at a couple of local tourist shops and had dinner. We headed back to the hotel for a swim (or a really long, much-needed soak in the hot tub to be precise) and then right to bed.

Day 5: We did session 5.

 We hung out for awhile

then hit the road.

Our last stop was at a mall closer to home for lunch and to give her the special gift they recommend.

We talked about a couple of options and considered some kind of purity jewelry like a ring or necklace but decided instead to get her ears pierced. She's been asking to do it for a long time, and we thought that it would be a great tie-in. Every time she sees her earrings, she'll remember our trip. 

Leading up to the piercing, we gave her a list of things that we wanted her to do to demonstrate that while it's fine to want to look beautiful on the outside, beauty really comes from the inside.

I saw this idea online here. I changed out some of the characteristics from the original to better fit Soprano and changed some of the verses. She needs to finish a few more but ran out of time because our trip had to be scheduled when it did. We're planning on her completing it.

She was so brave. She didn't even flinch when it happened.

 I had a double helix done. I may have moaned or whined. Man, it hurt!

The very last thing, to wrap-up the whole trip was the gift of this journal. I told her that we talked about wasn't just a one-time thing, it was the beginning of an ongoing conversation. But sometimes the topics we talked about can be embarrassing so we gave her this journal. She can write questions in it (to either me or Bass) and leave it on our bed. We write our reply and then put it back on her bed.

And with that, the trip is done. It was really, really good. I think it will be a good memory for her down the road. This isn't a sponsored review but I would highly recommend taking this journey with your tween.