Autumn Treasure

A little boy with short black hair and a gleam in his brown eyes roamed over the materials that he has before him. He took a bite of his pumpkin spice pancake while ideas swirled in his mind, filled with imagination.

So many ideas played around in his head as he ate his breakfast but when he finished, he could not help but immediately get to work. Construction paper of various colors, glue, markers, crayons, yarn, tape and oh the amazing possibilities that he could do with this. Quickly, he got up from his place and went to put on a coat over his minion pajamas and grabbed his shoes to put them on, making his way out the door of his mother’s cozy home to pick up some leaves that have already turned color and fallen from their tree.

He already had a bag at the ready and filling it with yellow, orange, red and brown leaves that he could use for color and maybe some inspiration. Once finished, making sure he didn’t bring in too many and checking for bugs, he ran back inside with his haul of Autumn treasures. Immediately, he went to work on using them for the construction paper by tracing them as best he could without cracking them or tearing them. He began to add detail to his paper leaf of the one he traced, as best he could but he knew it is perfect to him. He continued this tracing and detailing act for nearly an hour or hour and a half. At this point he already has a stack of construction paper leaves; some are messy, others looked a little botched but perhaps that was the purpose while others looked shaped enough to look like leaves. Despite this, he is happy with his work.

The little boy looked over his leafy work, smiling and proud of himself but now came the hard part...Gluing the paper to the yarn. One would think that is an easy task but not for him, see...he has had a rough time using glue before and somehow it would result in some of it being in his hair which is hard to remove but to his luck, his mother knew how to remove it so he did not need to worry. Though...common sense did tell him to try to be more careful.

He immediately took to the yarn and cut a long length of it that would aid the paper leaves in dangling from the ceiling of his mother’s home. He narrowed his hues and thought of an interesting idea...cutting the yarn different length to make it seem like fall inside their house. That would be a great idea! He thought gleefully and went to work on cutting the string. He moved along each string, a smile on his face as he knew what he will do for the decorations.

String and yarn nearly flew all over the place as some strings were too short to be used. Some were even forgotten as his attention would some times slip though it would return with fervor. He grabbed one of the long discarded yarn and would look at it for a moment then gathered the paper leaves as well as the glue.

For a long moment, he stared at the glue… “Okay glue. It is you and me, this time I will win and you will lose.” He put on his face of determination and set to work on gluing the leaves to the yarn, making sure to leave space between them and some space to hang the leafy string. He hummed to the tune in his head as he continued his gluing work. Already, he was breaking a sweat since he is having to be careful with the glue but what he did not realize is that there is already a paper leaf glued to his head. Where did I put it? The little boy thought as he looked around for the big yellow paper leaf but could not find it. I just had it in my hand… He shrugged, oh well. And went back to work on gluing the leaves to the yarn. A various colors of yellow, orange, brown, red and he even added some others that were not fall colors but all the same, colorful and creative.

Once he finished the yarn of leaves, he looked over his work unawares of the mess he made of himself; some glue on his cheek, leaf glued to his minion pajamas and somehow another paper leaf stuck in his hair. He had made a mess of himself but being unaware of this, it did not seem to matter to him as he smiled at his handy work.

He looked at the other stack of construction paper as more ideas swirled in his creative mind. Pumpkins, kitties, ghosts and more! He danced with excitement and went straight to work on the next pile of construction paper. He knew exactly what to do with this. Picking up the markers, he got to work on drawing out a simple image of witch but with green construction paper and a black marker. He enjoys doing this, his mother even dubbed him yearly decorator this year for the house but the safe kind. He knew he is not allowed on the latter so he was given the job to make decorations for the various holidays and even help his mother decorate the alter for Samhain this year but for now, he will work on the indoor decorations. He hummed happily as he worked on the witch decorations, using various colors. Once cut out, he moved on to the black cats but this time he used white marker on black construction paper. He begged his mother to get him the markers that are used on black construction paper so he could make the kitties for this one. Pumpkins are next and he went to work on those; some looked goofy and others looked like one eyed jack-o-lanterns, he even made some that resembled himself and his mother. In this one, he made sure to glue them together almost as if they were cuddling for the autumn cold.

A cup of hot cocoa is placed beside him to which he looked up and grinned, “hi momma.” She smiled down at him, her brown eyes gleaming with mirth as she took in her son’s appearance. “Mijito, look at yourself. You look a mess.” She chuckled softly. “I tried to be careful but...the glue won this time, like always.” He says with a blush crossing his cheeks, trying to hide it behind his cup of hot cocoa. She shook her head, a smile on her face as she watched him go back to work on the decorations.

Fin.