nature table.

i never do this. well, rarely. i guess talking about my home makes me feel hyper aware of how lucky i am to have a home and stuff to fill it with and this leads to a guilty conscience. but i do have a nice apartment. and i have possessions that i care about so here goes...

the 'nature table' (pictured above) was inspired by our visits with shannah and bruce in southern illinois. they keep a seasonal nature table for their youngest son so that he can collect and possibly ponder the things they find on walks. i loved this idea. of course, my nature table contains more articles that straddle the gap between organic and fabricated, but i had to put my own spin on things, right? that said, i think max did include the 3" button i made him on his nature table, so maybe he is heading in the same direction as me.

in the back, there are two terraria that i put together in the winter. they were heavily overgrown when i got home. i had told the subletters that they could just be left alone, but didn't anticipate the amount of grass seeds that might be lurking within. grass explosion! it has calmed down now.

there is also a log candle holder that i bought for a dollar at a garage sale in edmonton. everyone made fun of me for buying a log but i had a vision. it was also made by the father of the garage saler, which always sweetens the deal for me.

in front of that is a glass filled with alder cones i collected on pender island in january and a silk worm cocoon i found in with my dad's stuff.

up here are some acquisitions from this trip and the past year - a 'pasture slice' that i got from small stump at renegade san francisco (small stump was the highlight of the fair for me), a covered stone from margie at resurrection fern, a plaster cast of tara bursey's finger by...well...tara, a buckeye that bruce gave me and a porcelaine hand figure from the museum of jurassic technology.

at the end of the table is a fig plant that leah gave me when she thought she had killed our gardenia. the truth is, she was just witness to its death. we were never able to give that gardenia what it required. but the fig is a toughy!

hopefully, this little display will continue to grow - i have never been much for minimalism. but for now i can add it to my short list of calming places in the apartment while we tear every other corner apart and/or fill everything with craft-making detritus.