Thursday, December 18, 2014

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2007. We were busy that day trying to stage Mattie in front of Christmas tree, to get the "perfect" Mattie photo for the front of our Christmas card! That year my parents were in DC and they took a photo of the three of us in front of the tree. Ironically this maybe our only photo of all three of us in front of a Christmas tree! All our other Christmas photos are either of Mattie or Mattie with other family members. So this photo is very special to me. Mattie typically did not like posed photos, but as he got older he understood why I wanted him in front of the tree and the fact that the photo was going on our cards. But when Mattie was a toddler and a preschooler, forget it! We had to practically do a song and a dance to get a usable photo! Which is why for the first several years our Christmas cards were ALWAYS location photos..... never in front of our tree. With a location, we had half of a chance of stimulating Mattie's mind to get him to focus on something so that we could take a photo and his body wouldn't be moving in twenty different directions at the same time.  


Quote of the day: Creativity takes courage. ~ Henri Matisse

Despite the fact that I am balancing a ton of work this week, I decided to take on a craft project. It is funny, when I am most strung out, the craft projects seem to present themselves. In Christmas of 2009, I made this set of candy centerpieces for my friend. Of course 2009, was particularly horrible. It was our first Christmas without Mattie. We were truly lost. I remember making these candy trees...... I literally sat in bed watching Hallmark movies and was gluing candy to Styrofoam cones. I was partly numb, directionless, and yet creating truly helped. It kept me focused on something. It was my form of therapy. But I developed that therapy while in the hospital. Mattie and I would create all sorts of things together with his art therapists. In fact, it was Mattie who first showed me how to use a hot glue gun when he was in preschool. Rather ironic, since now everything I do is with a hot glue gun!

If the candy cane centerpieces weren't enough in 2009, I then baked from SCRATCH four Gingerbread Houses for my friend's daughter's birthday party. These were labors of love. Because baking and assembling gingerbread houses are not EASY!!! 

Yesterday, I found myself inspired to venture to AC Moore. One of my favorite stores, after Hallmark. I went to AC Moore with the idea of making a candy wreath. However, when I got there I saw the frame for these topiaries. When Peter and I got married, we had these types of topiaries on our guest tables.... filled with beautiful flowers. Of course we were married in the summer time, but I figured I could transform these structures into a Christmas theme and not use real flowers but silk ones so they could be used year after year. I took a photo so you could see the two topiaries. The one on the left is almost how I bought it and the one of the right is being transformed. I spent quite a bit of time at AC Moore and really designed the whole thing while walking through the aisles. As Henri Matisse's quote points out, creativity does take courage. At one point, I wanted to say..... "I don't think I can do this!"

Here is a close up of the right base..... I added dried moss, starlight mints, and red and gold jingle bells! I am still at it, but you can see the work in progress!