Acornmageddon

I don't know if this is a mid-Atlantic-wide phenomenon this year or  has something to do with the variety of oak trees growing in my town, but the acorns are dropping like crazy.  My mom tells me when oaks drop tons of acorns it is called "masting."  The Internet tells me a mast year can mean five to ten times the normal amount of acorns and that acorn nuts are edible if you soak them long enough (hmmmm).  My husband tells me that three weekends in a row of sweeping, blowing, and raking buckets and buckets of acorns, only to have a million more drop the next day, is really annoying.  Well, you know the old saying, when life gives you acorns make acorn crafts!
 

Some of the acorns and caps collected from the yard

I turned to Martha's website, sure that after decades of crafts and likely a few mast years under her belt, Martha would have some great acorn crafts.  Alas, most of the crafts were to make things look like acorns that were not actually acorns.  Acorn marzipan?  No thanks.

She had an acorn cap mirror on her site, but I wasn't crazy about it,  Besides, I wanted to use whole acorns, not just the caps.

Photo credit: Martha Stewart

She also made these acorn napkin rings, but how often would I really use napkin rings.  Besides, I have millions of acorns, using 3 each for a few napkin rings didn't seem very satisfying.

Photo credit: Martha Stewart

 So, I abandoned Martha and just gave each nut a good wipe clean and hot glued the acorn caps back on the nuts. 

Then I put a candle in a glass hurricane and filled around the outside with my newly restored acorns.

 

Hot gluing the acorns and caps was surprisingly relaxing and the end product is really pretty.  One hundred down, several million to go.

-Jacqui