Leaf and Twig Fall Mobiles

We finally got around to turning our windfall of twigs into something artistic for autumn.

I placed them out on the table today, with yarn, and a pile of silk leaves.  At least I'm guessing they were silk.  They were fake, and from the craft store, anyway.

I explained the concept of a mobile to the younger girls (ages 9 and 10) who were too young to remember the last time we made mobiles, and demonstrated for them a how to piece together a pattern before they started assembling their projects.

I mixed the twigs and leaves back together (so as not to influence them too strongly with my own pattern selection), and let the girls go to work.  The last time we did a similar project was a few years ago (inspired at the time by Alexander Calder) when the older girls were just about the age the younger girls are now.  It was fun for me to see the younger girls (ages 9 and 10) expressing their own creative vision of a project their sisters had tackled previously.

E surprised me, and started off right away by tying two of the twigs into an X to hang leaves from...

...while C stuck with the simpler single twig starting point I had showed them.  C also went straight to taping her leaves to the yarn, while E gave a valiant try at sewing them on, so they would look better.

Sewing the leaves onto the yarn proved to be slightly more difficult than she was ready for though (you have to work hard to get them to hang right, and balancing a mobile is already a complicated feat in and of itself).  In the end, she relented, and taped her leaves to the yarn, as well.

It is possible to see the tape, but the completed projects are still striking.

Naturally though, I hung them in front of a sunny window, so you'll just have to take my word (and a few back-lit pictures) for it.

They really do look nice, and appropriately autumnal, hanging and twirling, ever so slowly in afternoon light.