Whether young or older, we can have fun making collages from the collectibles of autumn. 
Take nature walks, browse around your own yard, find memorabilia of other years and create lovely and unique collages on various backgrounds.
You might use fabric, cardboard, shingle, colored paper, foil, bark and other background materials.  If they’re too flimsy, put a firmer material behind them.  Then add leaves, pebbles, twigs, bark, paper cut in autumn shapes, burlap, twine, yarn and other objects that will combine into an artistic piece.
Sometimes you may have a theme.  Other pieces may be simply an attractive arrangement of the objects you have on hand.
I …read more

Some of my memorable and colorful photos have centered around children and pumpkins in the fall. 
Sometimes these involved Halloween costumes, perhaps midst colorful leaves.  Other times the photos simply consisted of my daughter, grandchildren or nieces with pumpkins they carved or have ready to decorate.
My nieces sold pumpkins from their garden for several years and had a mound of them near the road in front of their house.  My husband took  lovely photos of the girls midst their pumpkins.
I’ve included some of my pumpkin photos in the book I made, using scrapbooking techniques and my fall poetry.  Those of pumpkins and youngsters …read more

With the coming of fall in New England, orange pumpkins make their appearance in fields, at farmstands, on porches, as jack-o-lanterns, and in recipes.  We associate them with this time of year and use pumpkin designs and colors in our crafts and decorations.
How does Pumpkin Time inspire you?

Colors in decorating
Colors and designs in fabric art
Pumpkin collages
Pumpkin and fall inspired book, like my poetry and autumn one
Pumpkin stories like my “Mama’s Prize Pumpkin” in my anthology, Tales of Adventure & Discovery.
As the subject of poetry written by children and adults, such as that I teach in my workshops
Jack-o-Lanterns, both carved and …read more

I’m starting to get into the autumn mindset: Our cooler days are just a few weeks off, and I’m already looking forward to dinners that don’t involve the grill or “cold fixins” like salads and sandwiches since it won’t be so miserable to turn on the oven!

So I’m going through and doing my annual “fall cleaning” with my recipe folder, and the one section that I pay a little more attention to is my desserts. I have a habit of printing off pretty much any recipe that catches my eye, or ripping out a magazine article of something that looks …read more

Nothing beats the aroma of baking apples on a crisp fall day, except maybe getting to eat one! With apples coming into season and backyard gardeners and farmers harvesting by the bushel, the healthy snack becomes a delicious treat!

September 17th is the perfect date for National Apple Dumpling Day. The yummy pastry really couldn’t be easier to make, and chances are you’ve got everything you need for it right in your pantry. They’re said to have originated in the northeastern United States and are popular among the Amish, who have them for breakfast or as dessert after dinner. If you’re …read more

For a class I taught combining writing and scrapbooking, I created a small scrapbook using my fall photos, taken over the years. I’d also written several fall themed poems and selected the one about “Jack Frost,” an imaginary fall and winter visitor of my childhood.
The 5 x 7-inch scrapbook album was ideal for my photos. I used scrapbooking stickers, papers, and stamps to decorate the pages. These were arranged around the words of the poem throughout the book.
I also scanned several of the pages to show writers they (or a printer) could reproduce this album as a book they might …read more

Once fall arrives you’ll want to use nature to decorate more often. Many times you can make fall decor items out of the natural elements you find in your garden. This is less expensive, more fun, and more personal then simply buying your fall decor. Good fall nature craft decor items include pine cones, dried berries, acorns, fall leaves, mums, aster, Helenium, Helianthus, Russian Sage, Japanese anemones, and more. Colors of course are easy – cinnamon, rust, deep red, orange, fig, yellow, and browns. Here are some ideas…

Save on Crafts offers the basic plan for making a great fall wreath, …read more

If you’re like me, you count down the days until September 1st. Not only does it mark an (unofficial) turn of the seasons with cooler weather, crisper air, and falling leaves, it also means pulling all of my autumn decorations out of storage and decking out the house in reds, oranges and golds!

Naturally, my thoughts also turn to warmer fare, and what cooler evenings mean for dinners, and cooler mornings mean for caffeination!
One of my favorite ways to “celebrate” is to grab a Pumpkin Spice Latte. Starbucks usually rolls theirs out around September 1st, and many other more local …read more

Visitors to San Francisco’s Chinatown next month will have the opportunity to enjoy the 19th Annual Autumn Moon Festival.  Moon Festival celebrations are not yet commonplace in the US, although they’ve been held in Asia for over a thousand years.  The festival is a changing of season event, a time to give thanks for a plentiful summer harvest, and the changing of the moon and the seasons.  Often equated to a sort of “Chinese Thanksgiving,” it’s a way to mark the passing of one season to the next, and to give thanks for the abundance of life.
Of course, just like …read more

Over the years, lasagna has become my default dish to make and serve when we have company coming over for lunch or dinner, and also the meal I like to make to take to a sick friend who might not be up to cooking for themselves. I like to make it quite a bit when the days begin to cool as we head into fall, and the smell as you come into the kitchen from a cool winter day can’t be beat.
So, as temperatures begin to descend, I thought I’d share my favorite recipe. It’s adapted from a Better Homes …read more