Gifts from the Forest

I while back I posted about these amazing west coast acorns and pine cones sent to me from a very dear person and her friend, who collected these beauties in California and packaged them up so gorgeously for me.  They sent some more forest floor treasures and I just have to share them again!  Look how beautiful they are wrapped...

like in their own little cardboard shadow boxes...

...and two more boxes join the group!

Look at this large, pointy acorn!  Here in New York and New England all the acorns are very round...not pointy or long at all.  How unique!

And this past fall I collected some treasures of my own from the forest floor when we were camping at our friend Pete's property in Central NY.

Some princess pines and other interesting evergreens...that I'm pretty sure are maybe really large mosses...

I noticed that some of the vintage Christmas corsages I have include a sprig of real dried pine.  When we were camping, I noticed these growing on the edge of a sandy dune and recognized some of them as the same kind of evergreen sprig they used in the corsages.  I think they dried and dyed them.  They were so abundant I didn't feel bad collecting a few to use for my own Christmas creations. 

So far they are drying nicely and still have most of their green color.  We'll see what they look like in about a year and if they'll need dying.  Either way I'm "dying" to use them!  :)