September 2007

….is what my dear customer, Clare Miers, wrote to me about on July the 9th. She was going to style and shoot an outdoor Thanksgiving table setting and celebration, in the woods, for Romantic Homes magazine. Clare wondered if I would like to make its papery accompaniments? Well, yes, that would be delightful….a few days filled with the gathering woodland ephemera, and the choosing of handmade papers, fonts and images….not to mention playing with scissors and paste? Such a lovely offer and one I accepted right away.

The next few days were busy in the quiet of my studio, with the dramatic finale of a trip into town to send the large package off to Texas via some very expensive and very quick-sort-of-shipping method.

Tho’ Clare said that I only had to make one invitation, I couldn’t hold myself to that….and the funny thing is-they decided, in the end, to use the invitation I made at the last minute and only made one of. And it is not the one you see above.

You will be able to see it, I hope, in the November issue of Romantic Homes. And so will I, for I have yet to see the magazine, tho’ I know that it is out there somewhere. It is really all such a mystery…..what will they have chosen to use? When will I be able to see it? I only know that the November issue is released because I received an order late Tuesday night (hello Tonya!) in response to it. Has anyone else seen it? Would anyone who has be kind enough to let me know? The anticipation is a sweet agony…..

Here are some photos from my sweet friend Clare of the shoot. It was such an honor and pleasure to be asked to do this, to be in print, to have been given some suggestions and the freedom to let them lead me where they would, to be a part of this lovely tableau. I like to think of how amazing it would be to be gathered around this table with Clare and any of my readers and customers from around the world who would like to come, and good food and drink and conversation….then my heart would indeed be “replete with thankfulness”.

These last four gorgeous photos are by Clare Miers, Miers Media as pictured in Romantic Homes Magazine.

I had written here a week ago, I would have been full of the beauty of my father’s funeral in Arlington and the sadness of all that was wrong about the ceremony. If I had written here a few days ago, I would have moved on to remembering what was right about the ceremony….like my brothers’ arms about me during the poignant moments, and meeting my sons’ loving eyes after an especially hard encounter at the graveside. If I had written here a few hours ago, as I intended, I would have written that I have been finding lovely distraction in the making of papery things, and the warm wishes and kind thoughts that have come my way here….

….and that I was very near to leaving all the complicatedness behind and getting on with simply getting used to my life without my father in it.

And indeed, I still feel that way-writing at this very moment. But I am also worried and scattered as my husband and eldest son drive to the city with our dear vizsla dog who has been ill all day and then began having seizures tonight-too many and too close together. Oh dear!

But I am weary of the hard things and am going to wrap them all up, for the moment, like the garlands in the photo, and leave them here in these few paragraphs, between the titles of this post and the last, and see you in a just a short while with a new and sunny post, for I have a few very nice things to tell you. xxxxoooo