Seasonal Table

With each season we spruce up our seasonal table with more appropriate seasonal findings.  As each season ends the pieces from nature get tossed back outside (usually flung right out those windows), while hand made items or special treasures get stored in the drawers below to be used for the next season.  Someday maybe we'll organize the drawers, but for now its almost like a treasure hunt, digging through the drawers to find the favorites from previous years to be added to the new artwork and bits of outside brought in.

Over the years the table itself has changed and the corner has been rearranged to suit the space and the height of the kids.  Sometimes there are live critters, other times nature games, always things to hold, look at, and explore.  It used to be an artistic endeavor of my own, one that the kids have taken more ownership of.  Eventually I imagine they'll outgrow the current set up and it will take on a more grown-up nature wonders corner, or scientific/naturalists cupboard.
But I hope to always keep a place for seasonal wonders and natural beauty.

      Seasonal tables from years past....

This weekend our seasonal table got a much needed spring up date.  So at least it feels like spring inside.
On the table for spring (so far):
yellow tulip
felted hatching chick and duckling (from a few Easters back)
flower prints from a huge old Wildflowers book found scavenged from a give away box
forced cut branches: tamarack, pear, beech
old Christmas cactus blossoms
found birds nest w/acorns for eggs
magnifying glasses
The huge sheet of plexi-glass is leftover from a copier Wylie took apart.  It holds the pages open nicely, and I'm hoping will inspire some tracing of the flowers with window crayons.

It's a little cluttered, and is sure to become more so as frog's eggs are gathered, along with the spring's first bouquets, sprouting seedlings, colored eggs, and more.  But its the best kind of clutter, particularly when the outside world continues to feel so much like winter.