Written By Donna Engle
Garlands of barbed wire trimmed with bows of homespun; a nine-foot tall Christmas tree bearing thousands of glimmering hand-blown Victorian glass ornaments; an indoor tree decked with birdhouses; outdoor trees laden with bird-friendly fruit, and on the dinner table, handmade birdhouse napkin rings and bird feeder favors for the guests. What the well-dressed Carroll home will wear this holiday season is as varied as the owner’s artistry and sense of style.
Creative holiday decorating emerges from individual inspiration. It may mean color palettes broadened beyond traditional red and green, unconventional materials or conventional materials used in unconventional ways.
Whether they are professional crafters, artists or homemakers with a flair for design, creative decorators find inspiration in unexpected places.
They draw ideas from nature, picking up pine cones and pairing them with fruits in a bowl or spray-painting crepe myrtle pods and hanging them on the Christmas tree.
They look at plastic snowflakes and envision a tree covered in crystals, snowballs and white lights.
They browse sale bins at craft stores and find an intriguing roll of ribbon that becomes a color theme.
Janie Dell of Tyrone, a nutrient management advisor and professional crafter of primitive folk art, is one of those creative people. At one point, drawing inspiration from nature and history, she looked at a wasp’s nest and saw a holiday ornament. She hung the abandoned nest on her Christmas tree. The delicate papery gray against the dark green boughs trimmed with white lights “looked so pretty,” she said.
Dell has used bittersweet vine, which has attractive seed pods, in garlands, and brought home wood fungus for tree ornaments. To make an unusual garland, she tied homespun bows among the rusty tin stars she added to old barbed wire.
Audrey Whalen of Westminster, a homemaker and retired office worker, chooses a Christmas theme far in advance and, through the year, finds items that fulfill her vision. Her birdhouse theme of several years ago had a special touch: birdhouse napkin rings made by her late husband, Clarence. Each year, she trims seven trees, decorates mantels of the three household fireplaces, makes her own pine and fruit garlands to outline the front door and bakes a gingerbread house for each of her grandchildren to decorate. She has trimmed trees in fishnet for a sea theme, covered them with Teddy bears or burgundy poinsettias and gold balls, wrapped in tulle or decked with sugared fruit.
“I think you have to have some ability” for decoration, Whalen said. She has no professional training, but sees decorative possibilities in everyday items. In autumn, for example, fallen leaves go into the trunk of her car to dry. When they are dried, she incorporates them into table or mantel decorations.
Beyond holiday reds, greens and golds are a wealth of colors to make decorations unusual or interesting.
Dell likes burnt umber or barn red rather than Santa Claus red. To color muslin dolls, she dips them in coffee, then dries them in the oven, “until they start to look toasty,” she said. She uses homespun for bows and ornaments, dipping it in tea to brown it and then ripping the cloth rather than cutting it to acquire the frayed, primitive look she wants.
Pamela Zappardino, a psychologist and artist who has won prizes at the Carroll County Arts Council’s annual Festival of Wreaths, likes silver, sparkle and non-traditional colors. She may use purple and white lights on the Christmas tree that she sets up in a turret adjoining the magenta living room of her Uniontown home. She highlights magnolia branches with copper-colored ribbons.
Mike Twenty of Mount Airy, a woodturner, turns tops and finials to attach to sea urchin shells, which occur naturally in green, pink, white and lavender.
Country blue mittens and stars and angels in tan robes holding brown stars are among the colors of holiday ornaments salt dough artist Kathy Mathews makes at her Union Bridge home. She adds spices to dough to create the background color she wants for her creations, then bakes, paints, and glazes them with polyurethane.
Decorating materials can be natural or manufactured. Lois Sebastian, a Uniontown resident and avid gardener, loves the scent of fresh greens for the holiday. She gathers boxwood, pine, holly, arbor vitae, ivy, cherry laurel or other greens from the trees and bushes that surround her home. She lets greens trail across mantels, lays them on windowsills or weaves greenery through pan hangers in the kitchen.
One year, Sebastian cut a quantity of ivy off her root cellar, put it on the mantel and let it trail where it would, “which was quite nice,” she said. On the other hand, she may mix natural and artificial. Last year, she trimmed the Christmas tree with artificial white magnolias and chandelier crystals, then extended the color theme throughout the house with greens and white amaryllis, which blooms during the winter.
Sebastian’s tips:
You’ll be happier with the results if you plan your decorations to go with the style of your house. Sebastian and her husband own a 19th century farmhouse with 10-foot-high ceilings, six fireplaces and deep windowsills, perfect for a huge tree and extensive use of greens.
Soak greens overnight in water before using. Boxwood soaked overnight will last for weeks. Yew dries out and doesn’t last well, although Sebastian does use it in windowsills. Holly lasts well if conditioned, but don’t leave the berries in water or they will fall off.
Before using pine cones, bake them in a 200-degree oven for one hour to kill the bugs that often inhabit them.
You can use your hobbies for decorations. A baker might display copper cookie cutters. A woodturner’s tree might hold a rounded ornament with top and finial or a snowman framed inside an open-sided ball.
Zappardino’s holiday art, particularly her wreaths, usually feature peace cranes. “I generally focus on themes of peace and non-violence, in the spirit of whatever holiday you celebrate–Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or the winter solstice,” she said.
