Posts Tagged ‘Feather Trees’

Convention Day two.

Had a wonderful breakfast with some Glow members from Honolulu, Hawaii, and then ventured off to one of the workshops. First I learned to make a cotton batting ornament with artist Lucy Webber.

These are ornaments made from batting, in this case cotton, which is less than a quarter of an inch thick and comes in sheets. From Lucy’s website “Cotton batting ornaments were made in the late 1800′s by cottage craftsmen of the Saxon Thuringian area of Germany.”

At the end  of the workshop, I had  a cute little Santa!  (whose photo is above.)

Second workshop was on how to make a cotton batting tree with folk artist  Jack Roads.  You start with a wire frame of a tree in a wooden base(or you can use a real tree), apply glue to each branch and to the trunk, and wrap it in cotton batting.  Then you use wallpaper paste to hold it all together and smooth it out.  A photo of  my final product is at top.

Fun times, great instructors!

By the way, I did find that antique feather tree – a small early green  table-top one with tin candle holders… and  guess who was selling it? The couple next to me in the ornament workshop!

Until the next sketch!

A week from today,  I leave for an antique Christmas collector’s convention called the Golden Glow. This year it is being held in Sacramento California.

I am so excited!  This will be my first time attending and I just LOVE antique Christmas ornaments—I have a modest collection of  some that I inherited from my family, mostly vintage Japanese.  In the last few years  though, I began collecting antique Mercury glass balls and garland.  The colors on these old pieces are  just stunning. I love to decorate my tree by mixing my line of painted ornaments with various sizes, solids and stripes of mercury glass balls. (I also learned  to wash my hands after touching them, the silver  in them gives me rashes!) I will post pictures once I start decorating my trees for this upcoming Christmas.

I also have a slight addiction for feather trees- I just love their look, history,  and how they show off ornaments. I  have read that when German immigrants migrated to America they brought along their feather trees. Christmas was something that was so beloved that they could not fathom celebrating the holiday without a tree.  The Feather Tree Co. makes wonderful new feather trees out of goose feathers in the traditional manner.

I hope to pick up an antique one when I am at the convention.  I will also be signing copies of my book A Very New York  Christmas as well as some of my ornaments – some of which are one offs and not yet available in retail outlets.  One that I  especially love is my new 3D American Roadtrip.

Until the next sketch!