Wreath from Natural Materials

Wintertime began today and it was wonderful to get to sleep one hour more and still wake up quite early. Yesterday it started snowing properly. Frosty scenery is now turned into black and white. Before Christmas decor and preparations I decided to make one last minute Halloween / All Saint's Day DIY. It felt like I have all the time in the world before Halloween. Then last week I saw some countdowns to Halloween and found out that it is actually on next week's Tuesday. We Finns have traditionally celebrated All Saint's Day and Halloween is relatively new phenomenon. On All Saint's Day people light candles on the cemetery and prepare a more festive dinner. Now Halloween decor is becoming more common. Even though Halloween feels a bit over commercial with all it's accessorize I think it is nice way to brighten up long fall and winter season. I used to start decorating Christmas on September but now I feel no need to be so early because there is this Halloween and pumpkin season. Last week I tried my first ever pumpkin spice latte. Spotted it at the local cafeteria. New phenomenons come into our lives little by little. After this Halloween and All Saint's Day week it will be nice to think about Christmas decorations. I have noticed that November always goes so quickly and then on December it will be Christmas all month. 

I gathered the materials for this wreath on Friday before the thick layer of snow came. After the autumn storms it was easy to find branches from the ground. Best part in this wreath is that you can easily update it for winter season by removing the leaves and adding some baubles or fake snow.

Wreath from Nature

You will need:

Branches

Pine cones

Wire (brown/copper)

Hot glue gun + glue

Paper yarn

Golden sewing yarn

Scissors

Needle

1. Take half of the branches and stretch them into a loop. Tie the loop with wire. Attach some more branches to the loop loosely with wire.

2. Let the pine cones open in warm room over night. Then attach the pine cones to the loop by hot glue gun. 

3. Twine open some colorful paper yarn and cut it to small leaves. Sew the leaves to a golden sewing yarn by hand. Decorate the wreath with the leaves. If you want to create a winter look you could use white paper yarn to the leaves.

4. Make a hook from wire and attach to the wreath. Hang the wreath to a door, window or wall. 

Lets enjoy the last days of October and autumn before November and first winter season DIY projects!

Sannu

Halloween Ideas: Eat, Bake, Decorate

Halloween is coming and as we are going through darkest time of the year it is nice to make and prepare something festive. I think that best inspiration comes from the nature which is waiting for it´s snow cover. I wanted to keep decorations very simple by using nature materials and light tones. For the food I combined cold salmon salad with warm pumpkin slices, which makes it both light and filling. When I made the cake I wanted to combine all things that taste like autumn and coming winter. 

Eat: Salmon Salad with Warm Pumpkin Slices

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salmon

vegetarian oil

salt

fish seasoning

Massage oil, salt and fish seasoning to the surface and cook in a preheated oven in 175 Celsius degrees for 15-25 minutes depending how big fillet you have.

pumpkin

vegetarian oil

salt

black pepper

lemon juice

Slice the pumpkin (don´t remove the peel, it looks decorative when you serve it). Massage oil and salt to the surface. Cook in a preheated oven in 200 Celsius degrees for about 20 minutes. Serve with black pepper and lemon juice.

spinach

curly endive

lettuce

cherry tomatoes

1 carrot

Parmesan cheese

Slice tomatoes and grate carrot. Mix all ingredients together and grate Parmesan cheese to the top. Serve with cold salmon and lemon juice.

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Bake: Pumpkin Cake with Mascarpone, Lemon and Figs 

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Use a hand blender to mince fresh pumpkin that you have carved from the inside of the pumpkin.

Wash one lemon and one lime properly. Grate off the peel from both. Add 2 tbsp water and 1 tbsp sugar plus grated peel to a kettle and let cook for two minutes. Put the peel to dry on a baking sheet. Use as decoration and spice for the cake filling.

Cake

2 eggs

1 1/2 dl sugar

75 g butter

2 tsp gingerbread seasoning

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 1/2 dl flour

3 dl fresh pumpkin puree

Mix together dry ingredients. Beat together eggs and sugar. Add melted butter and mix. Add dry ingredients and mix. Add puree and mix. Put the pastry to a well floured baking mold. Bake in a preheated 175 Celsius degrees oven for 30-45 minutes.

Cut the cake to two halves and slice both halves.

Filling

2 dl cream

250 g mascarpone cheese

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbsp lemon juice

lemon peel in sugar

fig lam

figs

Whisk the cream and add mascarpone, mix properly. Add the other ingredients and mix.

When you fill the cake put first a layer of fig jam and then mascarpone cream. Cover the cake with mascarpone cream, lemon peel and figs.

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Decorate: Pumpkins with Patina and Golden Dry Flowers

I have seen beautiful chalk painted pumpkins in blogs and as I had leftover paint I decided to try. To add something extra and get more ceramic look I also used antiquing wax that worked well. Do like this: Paint pumpkins with chalk paint and let dry. Use a soft cotton cloth to rub antiquing wax to the surface. Be gentle not to rub off the chalk paint. Let dry.

Collect some dry flowers that you can find outside this time of the year. Spray paint with gold. Put glue to one plate and glitter to the other. Dip gently the flower to glue and then to the glitter. Let dry.

I really like this simple decoration, pumpkins look almost like ceramic and dry flowers glitter beautifully. This combination makes kitschy skull lanterns look stylish :)

This week I have been learning new things. I am on Instagram now! It is so nice to connect with all the creative people in the world :) You can get to my Instagram page here! I am sharing pictures from my projects, food inspiration and walks to the nature. Yesterday I made a garbage find, check out what it was :)

Sannu