Or this one. These are the leaves I collected last year. Still looking great. I put them under stacks of law books and let them dry. Still intact and colorful this year. (Does that count as a craft?) 

But oh no! You want a real craft?

Truth is that I don't have one. All I have is a story.

So to save this post, I found you some cute crafts. Some things to do with autumn leaves.

Check this one out. It uses artificial leaves to create a pretty hanging. Very, very cute. And it looks easy. It looks like something I could actually do.

http://www.centsationalgirl.com/2009/09/whimsical-autumn-leaves-windcatcher/

And you can always count on Martha for some great crafty ideas.

http://www.marthastewart.com/article/fall-leaves-in-a-box

http://www.marthastewart.com/goodthings/autumn-illuminated

And here’s one I came across that doesn’t actually use leaves, but it is adorable. I wish one of you talented guys would do this. Little leaf-shaped felt needle keepers. So cute.

http://www.marthastewart.com/good-things/leaf-notions

So, okay. Before I get to my autumn leaves~not a craft~story, let’s talk about the WINNER of the drawing. And since we’re talking about “Autumn Leaves” and that’s one of my favorite Eva Cassidy songs, let me tell you about ANOTHER give-away.

But first, the winner of this one give-away is-Jeanne, author of this comment:

By: Jeanne

On: 10/13/2009 09:10:16

I vote for #1...this is autumns beautiful colors. Very curious about what you did with the leaves.

Yay, Jeanne! Email me and I’ll send you out a special box filled with goodies!

About the other GIVE-AWAY. Do you know who Eva Cassidy is? One of my favorite CDs of all time is her “Songbird” CD. If you haven’t heard her voice, you really should take this YouTube link and just sit back and relax and listen. Prepare to be moved. Her voice is haunting and beautiful.

This is her version of the old classic “Autumn Leaves.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--xW8HPJRY0&feature=related

Gorgeous, huh? Eva Cassidy died in 1996 from skin cancer, virtually unknown. When I hear her sing "Fields of Gold" which is also on the "Songbird" CD I always think about that picture of MaryJane with her fields of gold in the background. Lovely.

So since I love that CD so much and since you simply can’t find it locally, I'll send one of you guys it. Just leave a comment. Any comment will do. You could tell us whether you have a song or CD you listen to in the autumn. Or tell us about a craft you did with leaves. Or if you're getting autumn weather yet. Or anything. 

Or email me.

I’ll put everyone’s name in a hat and draw one to win that CD. It’s lovely.

Okay, now to my story. Why oh why do I have leaves spread out on my dining room table?
Well, you see, it started out like this.

I’ve lived among trees all my life. I’ve known the basics. I can tell a pine from an oak. But I sure can’t tell the difference between a white oak or a red oak or a black oak.

If you’ve read this blog for awhile then you know that the last few years, I have made a concerted effort to spend more time in nature. And I drag, I mean, take, my family along with me sometimes.

And so it began.

My daughter and my husband say, “What kind of tree is that?”

Hmmm.

So I bought a book.

And I took it out to the woods with me.

And what I found is that it’s really hard to figure out what kind of tree it is out there in the woods with a book.

Sure, the book gives you pictures of the bark and the leaves. And that sounds easy. But it’s harder than you would think.

Then comes autumn. In autumn you get BIG clues. In autumn you get color.

So my daughter and I took to the woods with a basket.

(Here's the lake where the path starts. Purty, huh?)

We filled our basket with beautifully colored leaves. We were excited. We had such a fun time on the hike. We couldn’t wait to get home to start the identification process.

As we came out of the trail, an older man was beginning the hike. “What ya got there, young ladies?”

My daughter excitedly showed him her basket of leaves and told him that we were going to go home and do a leaf project. And I was swooning about being called "young."

But then he turned to me and said, “Do you think you ought to be doing that? You know, ‘Take only pictures; leave only footprints.’”

I was aghast. I gave him a look and said, “I think it'll be fine.”

I won’t tell you what I mumbled in my head. But the truth is that his comment bothered me. I started to wonder if maybe we really should not have picked up the leaves and brought them home. This wasn't a state park or anything. It's private property. But is that not cool? Or maybe he was just grumpy? In any event, he stole some of my autumn leaf joy.

That Friday night, my hubby, daughter, and I sat around the dining room table. I quickly recovered my autumn leaf joy. This was a great project. We worked to identify the leaves we had collected. It was no easy task. We got stumped on quite a few.

Long after daughter’s supposed-to-be bedtime, we were still studying each feature and trait and uniqueness of each leaf in an effort to identify them. 

The next day Daughter got a notebook and some cardstock. She glued each leaf on a page and wrote the name of the tree. We put the pages in plastic covers.

Hopefully, we’ll have that notebook for years to come. I know this. I learned a lot from that exercise. I can identify most of the native trees in this area now. I can tell a black oak from a red oak from a white oak from a turkey oak….

And have you ever heard that if you catch a falling leaf, your wish will come true? I'm trying that out this year too.

So if you see a leaf falling, scurry after it and catch it and make a wish! (Just don’t let anybody see you if you decide to keep it…)

More stories coming up….