Home DecorNovember Traditions & Beeswax Leaf Garland November 13, 2019 Welcome, y’all! If you’re hopping over here from Up To Date Interiors, I’m so glad you’re here. New friends are so fun. When Cassie Bustamante asked me to join in on this Late Fall Tour, I was so excited! I LOVE this community of bloggers and joining with others for seasonal things is one of my favorite things. You guys know how I feel about the seasons over here! But I was especially excited because I think the vibe really switches to Christmas right after Halloween for so many. And that’s totally okay if that’s you! We have the freedom to decide how and when we make our home! But in the last few years, I’ve fallen in love with November…the glorious month when the leaves actually change in South Carolina. The month after all the Halloween hype when the days grow shorter, the visible signs of nature preparing for winter abound, and things are crisper. We bundle more to venture out and cozy more when we return home. We focus on gratitude and the world seems to slow a bit to give us time to appreciate and dwell on it. I love it. While I’ve really tried to slow and simplify our Christmas season in the last few years as well, there is a natural bustle that comes with that season that is beautiful. So, this calm to ease in and prepare our hearts and homes for the holiday season has become one of my very favorite things to cherish and rest in. So, hello, beautiful November! We’re here for all the magic you bring. I used to pull out all of my fall decorations, buy all my pumpkins, and we were good to go by September 23rd. Nothing really changed until they came down to make way for pine garlands and stockings. But our family and home is really inspired by nature. As we’ve continued diving into the natural world around us and the gorgeous seasonal shifts it brings, our home has shifted too. Now, early fall does come out for us at the end of September. That mainly means cozying up things a bit with more blankets and textures. We head to the farmer’s market and stock up on pumpkins that line the front steps and much of the inside. I LOVE PUMPKINS. In October, we add in some fun Halloween touches for the kids like webs and spiders outside. But come November, I’m ready for another shift before Christmas. The Halloween comes down, I usually tweak and re-arrange the pumpkins and we bask in some November traditions we’ve come to really love that help us hold on to the last bit of fall and also prepare for Christmas. I did a fall home tour earlier this season and you can check that out here if you missed it! For this later fall tour, I decided to show our home a little differently. It just felt right with these shorter days and longer evenings where the candles are burning and we’re burrowing in to feature our home that way. So welcome to a little evening home tour where I’m also going to share our favorite November traditions as a family. Come November, our fall nature walks turn into leaf collecting expeditions! The kids absolutely love hunting for the most vibrant leaves they can find. And of course, they love the crumpled brown ones about as much! I love how they see beauty in every little detail. We come home and press those leaves for a variety of November projects we look forward to each year. The first thing we make with those lovely leaves once they’ve pressed for a few days is a Beeswax Leaf Garland. It is SO EASY, y’all, it doesn’t even need a tutorial! But, here are the loose directions: 1.) I melt down Beeswax pellets in an old pot (I found ours at a thrift store for $2 and it’s now the “wax pot.”) 2.) Dip each to the end of the stem for maximum preservation. Tongs are really useful for this! 3.) Lay them out to dry on wax paper (or foil if you’re like me and realized you were out of wax paper while the wax was melting!) 4.) String them on twine or yarn with mini clothespins or tape along the back of them. The kids absolutely LOVE helping with this and then they’re so proud to have decorations up they made. I love how it brings a little of the outside changes inside and it’s something they look forward to making now each year. Dipping them in beeswax preserves them for the whole season! And I love them on the mantel, though they’re BEAUTIFUL in front of a window for the natural light to shine through! I love having candles burning around the house and especially love that we can roll them ourselves! It couldn’t be easier and is such a fun thing for the kids to do. I love this set from Amazon and it makes SO many candles. This set lasted us for about a year and we burn and roll new candles quite a bit. While I really love the natural color, I love that it comes in so many color choices. Rosie especially loves rolling pink candles for her room that we burn at bedtime each night. While we do burn candles at dinner all year, it seems like they get so much more use come fall and winter months. So, November sees a lot of candle rolling for us! Yes, I’m a grandma who loves to knit and crochet and I’m 100% proud of that, haha! I started finger knitting last year and knit scarves for the kids’ stockings and I was hooked. This fall, I decided I was going to learn to crochet a simple blanket. And thanks to YouTube and only a little frustration getting started, I did! I love having cozy projects like this to work on in the evenings while the hubby and I chat. And I absolutely love producing beautiful and useful things! I keep whatever I’m working on at the moment in a basket by the couch and it serves as decor for me! I love the cozy, lived-in feeling it brings to our living room. And it’s handy when I’m ready to stitch a few rows! Right now, I’m making a blanket to add to our bed in the fall and winter in this yummy rust/copper color. This has been like therapy for me, y’all. I’ve had it on my yearly goal list to learn this for about five years now. And I always talked myself out of it because I thought it would be too hard without ever trying! It was so much easier than I expected after about the first hour of trying to figure it out. Give it a try! I absolutely love our home at night. It’s always my favorite time at home and maybe that’s why I love November so much. The longer evenings to hunker down and enjoy. There’s lots of tea brewing, candlelit dinners even if it’s pizza, and family dance parties. It slows us down, breeds connection, and the gratitude just starts to flow for me. Thank y’all so much for touring our November evening home and our traditions. I loved having you 🙂 If you want to see more of our home, I did a walkthrough tour of our fall home last month that you can check out below (it’s shot vertical for IGTV, so if you prefer, you can find that here). And make sure you check out the next stop on the tour, Jeweled Interiors. There’s so much goodness on this tour! Check out the full line-up below: Monday Cassie Bustamante / Domicile 37 / Crazy Wonderful Tuesday Bloom Wild with Bari J / Eclectic Twist / House Homemade / Street Flea Style Wednesday Up to Date Interiors / The White Buffalo Styling Co / Jeweled Interiors / The Black House on the Corner Thursday Jessica Brigham / Dorsey Designs / Brit Dot Design / The Boho Abode Friday Earthly Urban Interiors / Kate Pearce Vintage / Burnett Bungalow / The Ruby Thursday Collective / Casa Watkins Living
Cassie says November 13, 2019 at 10:07 am I just love how cozy your home is, lindsay! and i love your grateful happy heart! AND that beeswax garland is amazing!!! Reply
Kathy Frye says November 13, 2019 at 5:22 pm Hi Lindsay! Your home is so warm, comfy and inviting!! November does seem to be a forgotten month, so I very much appreciate that you are trying to enjoy the beauty that November brings. As the wife of a beekeeper, I also love the wreath hanging on your mantel. Where did you get it? Many blessings to you and your family. Reply
Tina Bousu says November 16, 2019 at 11:30 am That leaf garland! And it’s so much more special since you collected the leaves what a beautiful idea. Reply
Shelley says November 17, 2019 at 10:31 pm Oh I love how you have added these traditions to your home! I will have to try some of those out myself! Reply
Kathy says November 18, 2019 at 3:01 pm I loved your evening home tour! It’s so warm and beautiful and the beeswax leaf garland and candle DIYs look like fun! Reply
Lindsay says November 25, 2019 at 11:10 am Thank you so much, Kathy! The kids and I have so much fun on these traditions 🙂 Reply
Janelle Burnett says November 18, 2019 at 7:38 pm These are great quick and easy DIY projects for fall. I remember making beeswax candles as a kid! Reply
Lindsay says November 25, 2019 at 11:22 am Oh that makes so happy to hear! I hope my kiddos remember these things 🙂 Reply
Varinder says February 14, 2020 at 12:49 am hi Lindsay, Amazing decor ideas I loved the way you decorate your house, especially your kitchen interior warm and cosy. Thanks for sharing your great ideas. Reply
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