My Marmadoo*, the Award Winning Crafter

Strictly speaking, this is not my craft. Strictly speaking, it's also not really a craft at all. This is my mother's entry in the Bluffview Garden Club Flower Show. I wanted to share it with everyone out there because I think she did a great job -- the judges did too, she got second place in her division. My Aunt Jan won first place in their division.
I felt compelled to share this with you for a few reasons. First of all, I have a very soft spot in my heart for all things Bluffview Garden Club. It's the Dallas neighborhood where I grew up and I had plenty of fun as a child participating in the assorted Bluffview activities -- the Fourth of July parade (where we got to decorate our bikes with red, white and blue streamers and balloons) and the kid's contest portion of the Flower Show. As a note, at the patriotic parade, most people brought their dogs on leashes with red, white and blue. We had a pet parrot and I insisted that we decorate his cage, put him in the old Radio Flyer and drag him through the parade route. One of the many reasons why Ricky, the Amazon parrot, hated me. And the flower show kid's contest... how I loved to do my flower show entries. I always won first place. When I was about 12 years old, I realized that all the kids won first place. Then all my ribbons didn't seem to mean so much anymore.

My mother, however, doesn't always fare as well since the ladies aren't handed blue ribbons quite so easily. For her, taking home the red ribbon is a big accomplishment. And I helped... I didn't have anything to do with the floral arranging, but I did help her with the mandatory (and absolutely ridiculous) artist statement and arrangement title. The theme of the show was "In an English Country Garden" and my mom thought that her location (on an end table) had some subtle colonial/oriental themes to it. She wanted to run with the idea of the British Empire and India as a territory of Britain. The judges insisted that each arrangement come with a 20-word description of the motivations and emotions behind the the arrangement. My mom turned to her copy editor daughter (me) and I drafted a little something, something for her to use. The judges liked it! Yay.

Here's what it said (the more than 20 word version):

In the shades of Rudyard Kipling…Imagine the juxtaposition – on one hand is the orderly English garden, the temperate green hills of Britain’s countryside. Lowly cows, ivy crawling over ancient brick and thatched cottages. And the Empire that expanded to the Far East and India, with the rich fragrances of exotic spices. The ornate and mesmerizing patterns of Indian art and architecture. This flower arrangement, with its delicate small flowers, seeks to marry the two cultures – casual, easy living in the English countryside with not-so-distant memories of a lifestyle gone by, time spent in exotic, hot India, where tigers and adventure dwell in a lush, crowded tropical landscape.

In spouting off such total drivel, I am reminded that I did minor in art history. And that's what it's all about.

* We're a family of robust nick-name givers. All those that are near and dear to Henrys have many a nickname. This is a new concoction for "mom" that is derived from the title that Louisa May Alcott's Little Women use for their mother "Marmie" and me being silly. I thought it fit the fact that the arrangement is from India, as one of my favorite Indian restaurant dishes is chicken vindaloo.

The Eggcellent Easter (Or the End of Egg Posts)

A little late perhaps to be debuting my Spring Easter decorations, but I'm such a lagger when it comes to blogging. I sure hope you'll forgive me. Above (and in a few shots below) is the arrangement I did (with all flowers grown by my mommy) and the Easter Egg wreath I made for our family's Easter lunch. We decided to do things super laid-back and casual. We grilled hamburgers (in the rain, as the weather didn't cooperate with our plans), baked french fries and had an All-American chocolate cake instead of typical Henry-family over-the-top feasts of fancy-pants foods.
I don't know why we decided to go super laid back, but it worked out really well for everyone. Did I mention the Bloody Mary's? With spicy Cajun salt on the rim? Oh my goodness. It was a great holiday.
And I got to do the centerpiece! I showed you a week ago my technique for draining the eggs shown here. I dyed them all with kiddie egg dye and high-end paint supplies. Then I thought they weren't quite showy enough so I rolled them in rubber cement and added super-fine glitter. Awesome. It made such a mess but it was great! You know how when you play with rubber cement it gets on your hands and rubs into those little balls of rubber cement? Well, add in tons of glitter and you have a genuine mess on your hands. Thankfully my nose didn't itch or anything like that and the mess was completely containable. I took a cardboard box and cut out a 9" circle and then inside of that I cut a 7" circle and used the 2" ring as the starting point for my wreath. Then I took a piece of fancy tissue paper (made by Papyrus and purchased at Central Market, which is generally way to fancy for me for craft supplies, but with tissue paper, you can see the quality) and cut it into strips, wrapping the strips around the cardboard ring and then letting the extra stick out of the ring like grass. When the wreath was completely covered, I glued the glittery eggs in a haphazard way to look casual and springy.
The arrangement was simple enough -- I took what mom had grown and picked and put it in a mint julep silver cup.

Below is a much better picture to get a straightforward view of the whole project.


And below this is the cake I made. Dyed the vanilla icing green and covered it with coconut flakes and some little Easter peanut M&Ms.

Can't Stand To See Them Go

St. Valentine blessed me with a pair of flower arrangements this year. What can I say, I'm a lucky girl. Oh that and my Granny loves me (aww, Arkansas!). And while the bulk of the flowers in the arrangements lasted a good week or more, when it came time to throw out the flowers, there were three white carnations with life left in them still and a heck of a lot of greenery that still looked nice and fresh so I decided to do a quartet of mini arrangements. I have a little collection of baby glass jars/vases and I thought they'd pair nicely with some bone china candle holders. I tinkered around with a lot of destinations for the four little flower holders and after a stint in my bedroom, bathroom, desk area, kitchen, living room window sills, they found a good home atop my light-up liquor table. I had to turn old Queen Victoria on an untapped bottle of Bombay gin on her side to prop up one little vase, you know, to give the arrangements so height variance.
I was pleased with my camera's treatment of these pictures. Usually shooting candles and twinky lights can be dull. I thought the colors turned out pretty vibrant (and I cheated with a bit of dramatic photo toning). So I am showing three pictures. Below is a shot of a single vase and then a view from above.