Thursday, December 07, 2006

Red and Green: Heavenly bamboo, green millinery and a tree

Heavenly bamboo richly deserves its common name; it has white flowers in summer, bright red berries in winter, and the leaves change into flaming shades as well along the way.

It's a very graceful low maintenance plant, with no need of pruning, low water needs, and I've never seen any insect or disease trouble on it either. It has been in my gardens through the years as a fence hedge and as an accent plant. Such a deal!

Now for Millinery:
This heavy green brenton is a fun Christmas wardrobe topper.
I flip the brim at different points to suit my mood; down all around in a mushroom effect for mystery, up on one side for a jaunty look, up just in front, as shown, for a English royalty take (The Queen's Mum favored that look), and up all around for a tailored sensible style.

I have a shawl collar deep green full length coat that goes with this hat. A bright red plaid muffler and I am Christmas!

Mostly though, I wanted to highlight this little trim idea. Just a millinery belting ribbon, with matching buttons sewn across the back.
Posted by Picasa Lastly, another little heartwarming story about my Christmas decorations. Most of my decorations have stories behind them, which is why I often wish I had friends or family with me when I am putting the items out.

It helps a little to be able to blog the stories, and I am enjoying reading other women's blogs about the stories behind their holiday decorations.

I feel like I know people better when I know why things are special to them.

This ceramic Christmas tree is pretty all lit up. The little plastic flames glow from the small single light bulb screwed into its base. There are lots of these kinds of trees, and last night I saw one at the CVS drug store, new, for $9.99.

What make mine so special is the story behind it.

Thirty years ago I was teaching craft classes at a store called Lee Wards. It was a forerunner of today's crafts center, and my job at Lee Wards (a dream job, really...) was to show up in the morning, grab stuff off the shelves and create new craft projects using Lee Ward products.

I know, you are just swooning over the concept of getting paid to just have fun. Pay was ten cents over minimum wage, and I had a spanking new Bachelors degree, so there was some disconnect there. But I admit, it was fun.

The other part of my job was to design and teach craft classes. I taught something like 30 different crafts, ranging from knitting to flower arranging to painting. Again, how fun is that?

After I instructed I would have to wait while the students did their work. And of course, since the classes were mostly women, we all would start talking about whatever it is that women chatter about when crafting.

Now in addition to my spanking new degree, I also had a brand new engagement ring on my finger, and a wedding date set for the week before Christmas. Naturally the topic of my wedding would come up during the chatter time.

One day, around the first of December one of my former students came back to the store, and asked for me. She was an older woman whose name I didn't even really know at the time.
I was paged, and I found her holding a box and waiting for me.

"Here", she said. "I wanted to give you this in honor of your Christmas wedding. Bless you and your marriage".

And inside the box was this lovely tree. She had made it for me, and didn't even sign it.

It has glowed at Christmas every year now for 30 years.

I, and my marriage has been blessed.

And wherever she is today, I hope she is having a Blessed, Merry, and Crafty Christmas as well.

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