A Bit of Christmas Bling

Several years ago I was at my friend, Gail's, house and had admired one of her Christmas decorations. Her mother had taken old jewelry and cut it apart and glued it onto a red fabric background in the shape of a Christmas tree and then framed it. It is very cool.

When my mom died this past June, my sister, Karen, was asking if anyone in the family wanted any of mom's jewelry. I told her I would take everything that nobody else wanted. She said she suspected a craft project (she knows me well).

So my plan was to make 3 of these Christmas trees...one for me, one for my sister, and one for my brother. I wanted to have them finished to give to my siblings on December 14th because that was my mother's birthday and she would have been 90 years old this year. But I found that although mom had lots of jewelry, she didn't have much of the silvery and shiny pieces that I wanted to use for the trees. By adding some that my mother-in-law had passed down to me many years ago, I was able to make one tree. Since it was from both of them, that tree is mine.

Then I took most of the gold pieces that she had and made an angel for my sister. By now I was down to the plastic pieces...but still some lovely things. Mom had a long necklace -- the kind you loop around twice -- that was made of shiny green beads. For each two round beads there was one sort of pointy bead. That pointy one made me think of a holly leaf. So brother Chuck got a wreath.

And thanks to the gift that is retirement, I actually finished them on time! Even in time to mail my brother's to him in St. Louis.