This whimsical Girl with Ladybug Necklace vase goes very very very high on my shopping list (the one I keep for when I win a lottery) and already decorates the house of my imagination…

Just look at her, flaunting a pair of fishy earrings and a wild ‘do’ of whatever bright flowers you’ve got in bloom… Terra cotta, about twelve inches high (before you fill the vase), it’s made by one of my favourite indie ceramics artists, Natalya Sots.

Natalya’s wildly distinctive colourful ceramics are found at arts-and-craft festivals in the Chicago area, online at Etsy), and in her fascinating Flickr photostream where you can also catch a glimpse of her works in progress.

Arts and Crafts

This was a spur-of-the-moment craft project, instigated by my young friend Kelly (who was spending March break with her grandmother, our next-door neighbour) and carried out on a stormy evening when our other entertainment options were limited.

Remember the Bendy Holdy Wondervase? If you’ve got a pair of them, you’ve got great fun! Kelly had had her heart set on playing with those flexible vases from the moment she laid eyes on them, so of course that was the very first project we had to do!

And what’s a vase without some flowers?

They’re a bit of a tough job, these flowers, since we didn’t have much in the way of materials — Kelly glued together popsicle sticks and painted them green to make the stems, for instance — but hey, we had fun doing it!

One of the tissue-paper flowers — the white one printed with tiny red hearts — went home with Kelly as a gift for her Grammie, because grandmother’s have a deep appreciation for such things.

Granny Squares

What can I say? For the better part of a year, I’ve been griping about the sad state of the throw pillows on the couch.

Scraps of yarn, a couple of crochet hooks, and an eager young helper with a week’s break from school… and now I’ve got plenty of “granny squares” to fashion into cushion covers!

Healthy Exercise with Dogs

The long-faced greyhound — who can’t get out to his running yard, with all that snow, enjoyed a Novice class in Rally Obedience. (That’s a dog sport that involves high-speed obedience moves around a timed course: great fun! You can learn more about it at RallyObedience.com.)

And when the weather wasn’t too bad outside, we had some doggie visitors… and some lovely brisk walks on snowy trails, coming back home to cinnamon buns and hot chocolate.

…and Nature Appreciation

Because winter in Atlantic Canada may last just a teensy bit longer than we’d really prefer… but, still, it does have its moments!

Today, I dashed into town to stock up on essentials, and while there stopped in at DJ’s mother’s house. Well, I’m ashamed to say that a parcel was waiting for me there since Christmas! (You know how it goes, never enough time in a day – especially when we seem to get a blasted snowstorm every third day…)

More later on one of the other goodies just unwrapped, but I had to show you this amazing vase — one of a pair I’m now delighted to be able to call my own.

Wondervase, they call it.

In a flat cardboard package, you find a flat plastic envelope — the medium size is 6″ x 11″ which seems a very useful size. Fill it with very warm water, right up to the top. The bottom flattens out and the whole thing becomes quite surprisingly stable.

So far, so good — but the real fun starts as the plastic warms up and becomes flexible.

You can bend it, fold it, twist it, and generally shape it into the mad funky vase of your dreams…

I can see getting a fistful of these vases and keeping them on hand for garden season — a quick and unusual way to present a gift of home-grown garden flowers to our visitors!

Truth be told, I’ve been playing with this all afternoon…

Tip: The instructions say to pour out the warm water and replace it with cool water, to make the vase hold its strange new shape, but I found it works better just to let it cool down on its own, less of the vacuum effect to suck in the sides — especially if you make the shape very narrow at the top, like this crazy twisted “bud vase” I shaped up around the handle of a wooden spoon.

All I need now is a long-stemmed rose!

When you’re done with the vase, you rinse it out as you would any vase, because you know it’s bound to get a bit gunky inside after a week or so with flowers in it — then soften it up again with warm water and smooth it out flat.

Besides the enormous amount of fun I found this Wondervase thing, it’s a huge bonus just to be able to pop it into a drawer with my dish towels and such. Because if you ever saw the ungodly mess that’s the inside of my china cabinet, you’d know I couldn’t possibly find the shelf space to store an ordinary vase…

Today’s guest is DazzlinDonna, who lives up to her name with a simply dazzling personalized gift idea that combines the virtues of thrift and creativity with the kind of real meaning we seek in the holiday season. Thanks for sharing this, Donna! ~Jen

Christmas Remembrance Gifts

The holiday season is meant to be a joyous one, but as we age we often must deal with loss. Many of us have lost parents and grandparents, or other family members in the past, and they are very much missed at holiday gatherings. Nevertheless, they can still be a part of the festivities as we honor them with remembrance gifts.

I like to give remembrance gifts that utilize some bits of the loved one’s favorite clothing, knick-knacks, or crafts. For example, this year, we purchased several cobalt-blue glass jars from the local Dollar store (for $1 each), along with a few bags of pot-pourri. We then used my grandmother-in-law’s old lace doilies that she had crocheted many years ago, wrapped one around each vase, and tied a ribbon around the neck of the vase to keep the doily “attached” to the vase. Next, we simply filled the vase with pot-pourri, and it was ready to be given to her grandchildren as a gift to remember her by.

Of course, you don’t have to use a doily. You could cut up an old flannel shirt that your father used to always wear, or a cotton sweater that was a favorite of your mom’s, or any piece of cloth that represents someone’s past life. As long as the item evokes memories, it can be used in some way to create a remembrance gift, even if it is as simple as placing it within a nice frame.

A few years ago, I purchased several hair brushes that were identical to the one that my mother had used for as long as any of us could remember. I gave one to each sibling. It wasn’t the exact same brush we’d all used as kids, but it looked just like it, and that is enough to keep her in our hearts each time we use it now.

Little remembrance gifts such as these can make the holidays much more special as we honor those who used to share the holidays with us. May you and your family have a wonderful holiday season, and may you share your memories in very special ways, each and every year.

~ DazzlinDonna

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