Christmas is Light
/Each year I make about 100 ornaments/gifts for some of the ladies whom I do personal shopping for, as well as for Ron and me to give to friends and family. Rarely are these projects simple or easy, and some years they take a lot more time than others. This year’s gift actually started as an idea at least 15 years ago . . . maybe more.
I was at Trolley Square in Salt Lake City after Christmas and found 10 of these lovely wrapped wire stars for 75% off. I bought them thinking it would be easy to come up with 90 more of them for the following year’s gifts. Each year until last year right after Christmas I have pulled that sack of 10 stars out of my supplies and had the intention to use them. Whether it has been my lack of inspiration as to what to do with them to make them special, or procrastination, I’m not sure why it has taken me so long to finish this project! Sometimes the process of creativity is quick, but this one was a long slow one. Last year after Christmas I found these tiny Nativity ornaments made in Germany. The wheels finally started to turn and the finished project began to form in my mind.
Initially I thought it would be easy to bend my own stars. I had Ron make me a frame with nails pounded into a piece of wood. All I had to do was wrap the wire around the nails, glue the end cuts together somehow, and wrap it with ripped ½” strips of muslin fabric. After bending the first wire form, it soon became clear - that option would not be happening. It was time intensive, and I was not happy with the results. I wanted a crisp, clean looking star with perfectly straight lines. The star I made was anything but that . . . Sometimes it takes me a few fails to come up with the thing I have envisioned in my mind. I almost gave up for another year, but then I had a good talk with myself. I told myself if I did not come up with a way to use those 10 stars I already had, and somehow come up with 90 more to complete by this Christmas, I would need to get rid of the 10 in order to clean out my “stash” of supplies, and release the anxiety this project had caused for so many years. This is when I gave it a concerted effort to find 90 more star forms. I’m pretty good at finding things online, and had searched for years to find existing wire forms to no avail. I gave it a few more tries, and lo and behold, found the exact same shape and size of wire star frames on Amazon!
I had already talked myself out of ripping all those yards and yards and yards of ½” muslin strips. So the next quest was to find the perfect ribbon with frayed edges to use instead.
Lucky for me, I found it from one of my favorite Ribbon Companies, “May Arts”. It even came in a 1” width, which allowed me to cut it down the center, giving me enough ribbon for two stars with just one length. I’m not a math wiz, but somehow guessed correctly on my first try, how long I would have to cut each piece of ribbon to wrap the entire star with one length.
I thought I had given myself plenty of leeway as I cut off 6 feet of ribbon, cut it in half, and began wrapping the first star. When I finished, I only had about 6” of ribbon left. For a 6” wire star, 6 feet of ribbon is a lot!!! No wonder I don’t do math! :)
What I thought would be a quick and easy project, turned into hours of work. Each star took 22 minutes just to wrap with the frayed ribbon! After wrapping 90 of them, the tips of my fingers are still numb. In order to keep the ribbon in place, it had to be glued and then held and wrapped as tight as I could possibly wrap it, then glued again to finish it off. I ended up wrapping 10 at a time.
That’s only as many as my hands could do at a time before cramping up. I would take time after each set of 10 to thread the tiny Nativity ornaments with their own little pieces of twine, tie the 100 strips of “Noel” ribbon – also from “May Arts”, and then cut the greenery into the exact pieces for the finishing touch.
I like to use a “lark’s head knot” on most of my ornaments. This type of knot helps the ornament hang straight and face forward.
I used two pieces of faux cedar, and one sprig of faux pine to complete the look.
Once I had the ornament to this point, all it needed was a gift tag.
I promised myself I would do something quick and easy, however after printing the tag, I decided it needed a cute dark green reinforcement-hole to tie it in with the greenery on the ornament.
So once again, I made something simple into something much more time consuming. The tag had to be small in order for it not to overwhelm the star. That meant the hole in the top was also small, and the reinforcement-hole tabs were so tiny as well. With numb finger tips, it was difficult to get them glued on without getting glue all over the tag itself. I finally came up with a process that worked thanks to a small set of tweezers, and then all that was needed was to add the piece of dark green twine to tie the tag onto the star.
https://mayarts.com/ribbons/1-inch-frayed-edge-cotton-ribbon/
https://mayarts.com/ribbons/3-4-inch-solid-ivory-black-gold-print/
https://mayarts.com/ribbons/400-yard-string-burlap/
The original plan was to just have the star be the gift, but with me, it’s all about the presentation. The star was simple and needed something else to bring out the simple beauty of the tiny Nativity.
I love Welches Sparkling White Grape Juice, but sometimes it’s difficult to find. Thankfully, “Target” not only had plenty, but it was also on sale!
Some ornaments were tied to a bottle of the White Grape Juice, others were tied to a bottle of my favorite “Frasier Fir” dish soap by “Thymes.” You can get this on Amazon, or the Thymes website, but I like to support one of my favorite small businesses in South Ogden, Utah “The Treasure Peddler.” I had a roll of pretty sage green colored silk ribbon that was the perfect choice to tie the star ornament onto the juice or dish soap bottles.
On a side note, as I wheeled my shopping cart to the checkout stand at Target there was an older couple in front of me. When the man turned around and saw my cart filled to the brim with the grape juice, he said, “Whoa!!! You must be having some kind of party to need all that!!!!” I laughed and said, no, it wasn’t for a party. The clerk then asked what I was doing with all those bottles of juice. I told her they were for friend and neighbor gifts. The man’s reply has stuck with me. He said, “Holy Cow! I can’t think of any friends or neighbors I give a crap about enough to give them anything!” At that moment, I so wished I had brought a couple stars with me! I would have tied them onto the bottles, and given one to the clerk at the check-out stand, but more importantly, I would have given one to the older couple and wished them a Merry Christmas! I so wanted to share with them the JOY of sharing LIGHT with not only people we know, but with complete strangers! I was so taken back by his comment, I couldn’t think of something wise to respond with other than, “Oh how sad, I’m so sorry!” I wish I had thought to share with them the blessing of serving others. It’s a frame of mind. Even if we are struggling, and not able to provide temporal gifts to those around us, sharing our LIGHT and JOY and HOPE doesn’t cost anything but effort! And the Lord has blessed us with an unending supply of effort if we just utilize it!
As I reflect on the journey of this project, and the interaction I had at Target, I thought, maybe this project needed to take as many years at it did. Otherwise I would have never met that older couple and had the conversation we did in the check-out line that day. It was a lesson for ME, and sometimes the Lord allows these lessons to move along at a slower pace, even years if necessary. As I still feel sad for this man who appears to have a bit of a “Scrooge” outlook on the season, I have HOPE that he will someday feel the JOY of sharing his LIGHT with those around him! I’ve been beating myself up for missing the opportunity to be more prepared in the moment, to share my own Light with these people through the creativity the Lord has blessed me with. I’m now thinking of something small I can carry in my purse, to share in circumstances such as this. I have something in mind . . . but that will be a post for another day! :)
As we are in the middle of this holy sacred season, may we all look for ways to continue to “Light The World” through service, and sharing the LIGHT within us – even if it is a conversation in the grocery store check-out line.
Love Ya, Les :)