acorn cup

We can all remember looking at the detail of tiny things - the intricate criss-cross pattern on an acorn cup, the tiny flowers that grew from the covering of green moss on a stone, the scarlet spiders we called blood suckers that seemed to be on every wall.

I grew up in north London with Hampstead Heath at the end of the road, and one of my earliest memories is finding acorns and acorn cups and learning that they grew into oak trees.

It's also a lovely way to remember special days - tiny found objects can be added to inchies for texture - such as acorn cups from a romantic walk; petals and confetti from a wedding; holiday mementoes etc.

It is impossible to put a date on the time when children first discovered that acorn cups make perfect miniature drinking cups, or realised they could race pieces of wood in a stream, but children improvise and all manner of objects are used as playthings.

SYMBOL: John and Yoko with the acorn cups, from the rare catalogue they produced for the Coventry exhibition.