Storybook Woods

Autumn Corners 5

Dear Abby was kind to let me share picture of her lovely home with all of you. I thought her mantel is stunning. Hopefully this will inspire all of you. Thank you Abby !!

Autumn Corner 4

Well I hope you do not mind indulging me. But one of the reasons for starting this blog was to share my English library. It is the first time I have completely striped a room and started over and this room is my favorite of the house. So I hope you do not mind me showing you every corner. Plus it is definitely the fall corner of my house. There is nothing like sitting on a rainy day with a book in my library. I hope it encourges you to create a library, even if it is just a corner of a room.

 

This room was the master bedroom. It had white carpet (which was gray in 4 years, yuck) and had bad 80's floral wallpaper. We pulled up the rug, luckily there was hardwood floor underneath. I painted over the wallpaper in this yummy shade that reminded me of maple cream. Even though I spent more on this room then I ever have I still tried to do it as cheap as I could. This map of London is actually wrapping paper.

 

This green hutch is a bit too early American for the room but it hold a lot of books. I may paint it black, we will see. The paisley quilt was my grandmothers. It is down filled and ready to fall apart any minute. But I love it, so I draped to it could be seen but not touched.

 

We have taken down the doors, hoping to strip them down to the wood. So for now I have wool suiting fabric with a men’s tie for a door to my cedar-lined closet.

 

I know in blog-land it is easy to create a rosy picture but not honest. So to be honest here is my crazy, messy closest I share with my daughter. This is the true me. I am a slob at heart and have to work really hard to keep my house clean . It is not in my nature to pick up after myself.

 

This was a free frame I was given and handkerchief I have been saving. I have another matching frame and want to put a mirror in it and hang it underneath.

 

This chandler was the big splurge. I thought it was better to just use what I had for accessories and instead put my money into paint and the light fixture. I like that it is oversized for the room and does not totally go with the room. I saw lots of light fixture that looked very library but I wanted something a bit unexpected. I like to have a few pieces in a room that does not go with the room. No total matchy-matchy for me.

 

This is a table with folding down sides table so I can open it up if I need to (I like to do puzzels in the winter here). The pillow is something I glued (literally) together and I love the New York Map tablecloth. I hope to get an England map tablecloth to replace it one day.

 

To add more storage, I took this self that was in an old trunk to hold more books. Ohh and look at all that dust.

 

My hubby is a hunter and was over the moon that I wanted to hang one of this deer racks.

 

This is my port bar (I see you smiling Tina) that hubby made me. You can see our big ugly (free) TV. Hubby made a wooden shelf that rest on the TV and has room for the DVD player. This turned out perfect.

 

Also this is a free poster that I hadfrom a unit about George Washington. I wanted to show it because I have not had the money to frame both the posters so I just taped the to the wall, till I can frame them right. So do the best you can, when decorating and think out of the box. The only vision I had when I started was a very English looking libary. I took it one step at a time. I knew I wanted lots of black, dark wood, deep tan walls and a small bit of deep red. And it grew from there. now I am working on my bedroom, one day you will see it !!!

Autumn Corner 3 part 2

 

Thank you Joanne for sharing these wonderful pictures of the autumn corners of your home. Just beautiful, as usual !! Apple night was fun. All though we could not see the moon, it was foggy. This year we sat around a big bon-fire and grilled sausages and read books till it got too dark. Another tradition is to read Apple Star story by Madge Bigham. There are several versions out there but I particularly love this one. Maybe because I love Ms. Bigham and collect her books. After you read the story you half to cut the apple into two, across the apple (not length wise) and see the star !!!

 

The Story of How the Apples Got Stars Within
by Madge Bigham

There was once a tiny seed sleeping in its blanket of earth all winter long until one early spring morning when Father Sun began to shine. The little seed awoke and began to stretch and yawn and stretch until its legs pushed deeper into the earth and its arms finally stretched up above the earth. Then, with one last stretch, the little seed poked its head up and looked around at the wide, wide world.

After all those long winter months in its brown earth bed, the little sprout thought it had never seen anything so beautiful as grass and flowers, and it gazed in wide-eyed wonder at the world. All day the little sprout listened to the music of the birds and the breezes and was full of wonder. She watched the clouds sail by in the blue sky and then saw the sky turn golden as Father Sun sank into his bed. And then, as everything grew dark again, the little sprout saw a wonderful sight: up in the sky diamond-stars were twinkling! She wished so much to touch one that she stretched and stretched to reach the sky. But she couldn't touch the sparkling stars. And finally she began to cry.

Suddenly, there appeared a fairy, wearing a crown a just those sparkling stars. "Why do you weep?" asked the fairy. "Because I so want such a star for my very own," answered the little sprout. "Ah, some day your wish shall be granted," said the fairy. "But first you have much work to do. You must grow strong and tall and full of love." And then the fairy vanished.

The little sprout worked hard to grow tall and strong and after some time she became a young sapling. King Storm came with his winds and rains and beat her down almost to the earth. But each time she struggled to stand tall again, and grew stronger and stronger. And after some time she was no longer afraid of him for she knew he helped her to grow.

After many visits from King Storm, one morning the little tree awoke to find her branches covered with pink blossoms. "Oh, how lovely!" she cried, and she took great care of them, day after day, until one day tiny seed babies appeared. Now the little tree was becoming a mother, and she was so busy caring for her tiny apple-children that she forgot all about her wish to the fairy. Summer came, and her children grew golden and green, and the little fairies came and kissed each little apple until it blushed bright red.

The little apple tree was so proud of her children -- she felt she could not be happier. Then suddenly the fairy with the crown of stars appeared beside her. "I have come to grant your wish," she said, "to bring you a star from heaven for your very own." "Oh," said the little apple tree, "I no longer need a star. I am quite happy with my apple children." "Well then," said the fairy, "I shall give my basket of stars to your apple children. But I will hide them deep inside where only the Earth-Children can find them." And so she did. And that's where you will find a star waiting for you: inside each apple, guarding the little seed babies for you to plant in the earth again.

We also carved out apples, put tea candles in them and made lanterns out of them. Lastly I made apple-sauce ice cream. This was soooooo good. All I did was warm up some of the apple sauce we had made that day, mix it with softened vanilla ice-cream and to gild the lily added some warm pear caramel sauce. If you do not have any caramel sauce would be yummy or cinnamon sauce. It was lovely day. Although I think we my all be a bit appled out now !!

Autumn Corner 3 part 1

One of the reasons I started the blog was to do a post on our Apple Day. I am hoping to start a trend of everyone having an apple day (I need to make tee-shirts  ;- ) and I hope it will be as popular as Christmas and Thanksgiving. First I have to give you a little history. When Aubern'e was little Willow Brook Farm on Bainbridge Island opened. Now if Martha was to open a farm on the island it would be Willow Brook. It has beautiful garden. They grow heirloom varieties of apples and pumpkins and a very large herb garden. They have miniatures horses. Sadly they have closed and only have a B&B. But they were the only farm in Kitsap County to make fresh cider. They had well over 20 different types of apples. We would buy different varies and have a sampling night. From there Apple Night has grown. We will set out different apples all labeled. Several different hunks of cheese. There is always a piece of sage cheddar. Cider, bread and different sausages. We sit by the woodstove and read all our fall/harvest picture books. One rule of apple night no lights. So after I get all prep-work done, it is only candles the rest of the night. The one exception is I keep a crockpot of hot cider.

Now there really is not one way to do Apple Night. As the years have gone by I have more and more friends who do Apple Night and each family does it a different way. Here are some ideas go apple picking, make apple sauce, butter, cider, ect. Make apple prints, apple dolls, have an outdoor bonfire, make donuts. Here is a list of some of our favorite fall book.

Pumpkin Moonshine by Tasha Tudor

Cranberry Autumn By Wende and Harry Devlin

Apple Cake By Nienke Van Hichtum

Goody O'Grumpity By Carol Ryrie Brink

When I Was Young In The Mountains By Cynthia Rylant

Yonder By Tony Johnston

Harvest Song By Ron Hirschi

When Will The Snow Trees Grow By Ben shecter

Ox-Cart Man By Hall Cooney

Children Of The Forest By Elsa Beskow

Woody, Hazel and Little Pip By Elsa Beskow

Mr. Apple's Family By Jean Mc Devitt

 

Also thank you Cherry at Tales From Pixie Wood for sharing your photo at top. I hope you do not mind me using it for Apple day. I will have some pictures, story and recipe tomarrow.

Autumn Corner 2

One of my favorite things that make me think of fall is nuts. Acorns, chestnuts, hazelnuts, ect. Here is a collection of autumn ideas all with the same theme. If anyone would like to contribute a post, a picture, an idea to autumn corners please let me know and I will post it. For example dear Joanne can I post your pictures of your autumn corners. Please, pretty please with carmel on top !!

I made these acorn pincushons and tag needle holder last year. The one above is the one I made for my mother. The one at top is the one I made for me. It is from Crabapple Hill Studio . I want to make everything from Crabapple. I just love Meg's things I wish I could meet her. Becuase I know just looking at her patterns I would love her.

I love the childrens book Miss Hickory by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey. It is a charming story. Here is a fun paperdoll

"Miss Hickory, a country woman whose body was an applewood twig and whose head was a hickory nut, must find a way to survive the fierce New Hampshire winter when her human caretaker leaves to spend the season in Boston"

1890 crochet acorn pincushion pattern

Wills cigarette card series : 1924 flowering trees and shrubs 

A chestnut coloring page

Honey nut squares

Autumn Corners #1

 

   

   

Well it is time for Autumn Corners. For some fall inspirations I am going to start this week with my mother's living room. Which she just did up for the fall. It looks so inviting and wonderful. Well done Mother !!!!

   

I have been seeing all these wonderful garland around the net and decided to make one myself for my entryway. I am sharing it with you. Just click on the picture and it will be bigger. You can save it and print it up. I just cut out the ovals, then an an oval a bit bigger in pretty paper (on card stock) and glue the smaller one on top. One trick I did (and was glad), was to cut slits on the sides. Then I ran the ribbon thru it. I used a very long ribbon. Then I could slide the letters around. If I decided next year to use in in a different bigger place I can move the letters out. Enjoy