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I am sharing photos that we just received from one of my collector’s yesterday. I love the way Darlene has displayed her collection in this elegant cabinet. The lighting is perfect and the mirrored background increases the impact of these hosts of angels!

She also shared with us a comment from a little girl who was visiting her home and said, “Look, Daddy! An army of angels.”

WOW this is amazing! Thank you Darlene for sending us the photographs. This really touched my heart because it is my heart’s desire for my angels to remind us of God’s love and protection.

My little Noble Fir tree in the kitchen is trimmed with a Pocketful of Stars. I have it in an antique silver vase and the only other thing I added is an ivory bow at the top.

It is so much fun to have mini trees around the house to spread the cheer throughout!

I am so excited to go home again and do an angel signing at the new Falls City Library. Even though this is not the same library I grew up in, it is still nostalgic because the library at home was such an important part of my growing up. I always had a book checked out from the library; I was one of their best customers.

Each book I read took me on a wonderful adventure and expanded my imagination.

My mother, who was a teacher for many years, passed down the love of reading and learning and this legacy was the root of my romance with books. I must admit that I was sometimes accused of being a book worm and my family would ask me to “put that book down and talk to us”.

Well many years have passed and I continue to love reading. Now my favorite book is the Bible as I have discovered the eternal beauty of this book and so, along with many other books, reading is still a highlight in my life.

It will be such a pleasure to meet old friends and make some new ones. And it seems appropriate that this will take place in one my favorite places when I was growing up.

Thank you for this sweet invitation. See you at the signing!

Mark your calendar to come:
October 7, 2012     2:00 – 3:30PM
Falls City Library & Arts Center
Kathy Martin
1400 Stone St
Falls City, NE 68355
Phone: 402-990-9876

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Each ornament hangs gracefully in open spaces and the lights shine exposed like stars in the sky. My Christmas tree this year is a Noble Fir that has not been pruned. The natural growth pattern is open and airy with lots of space between the branches.

I started decorating with a tree skirt and heart ornaments that I had made from a vintage red and white quilt. I added red and green glass balls, a collection of hand blown clear and white glass ornaments, and finally my porcelain angels and stars.

As I put each angel on the tree, I was reminded of the thoughts and happenings that inspired that year’s design. And so many times I have also been inspired by the meanings that you have assigned to your angels; your first Christmas together, the birth of your children, a new tradition for your grandchildren, the love of the sea and many, many more. Each year new loves and new joys are celebrated and sometimes sorrows are uplifted with hope as we assign meaning to the symbolic ornaments we choose to hang upon our tree.

My very first angel design, The Trumpeter, was such a sweet gift from God to celebrate my first Christmas as His child. I could hear the music and the words of praise as the angels sang, “Hark the Herald Angel Sing, Glory to the Newborn King!”

A couple years later, the Holly Angel, 1983, held holly to celebrate the Christmas season and also the Northwest where we had settled down to live in Salem, Oregon. I was so excited to pick holly for Christmas in the empty lot next door. I tucked holly in the Christmas tree branches, in a wreath and behind the bows on my packages.

The 1984 angel, The Dove Angel had many levels of meaning for me including peace and especially love as the angel nestled the dove in encircling arms to symbolize my love for my newborn child, my daughter Caitlin.

In 1985, the Heart Angel held a shell heart. The heart had taken on new, richer and expanded meaning as I experienced love for and from my darling Caitlin.

Many years have passed and I have designed many more angels, each with poignant inspiration, but these are a few of my favorite things…

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Miniature boxwood wreaths dress up an old, iron candelabra for festive Christmas entertaining. For small wreaths and garlands, boxwood is the ideal broadleaf evergreen to use. Its tiny dark green leaves are adorable, shiny and stay green for a long time inside.

I love using greens from my own garden to decorate my home for the holidays. It is so satisfying to grow your own, to use live decorations and to “shop” in your back yard.

To make each wreath I used single branches about 3” long. I wired each one to the previous one until I had a garland about 7” long. I then overlapped the ends and wired them together to form the wreath.

It is important to use soft clippings – no woody stems – so the garland is flexible enough to form a small circle.

Boxwood loves to be pruned any time of year to let the light in, so don’t be shy about gathering lots of boxwood clippings for wreaths of any size, garlands and green arrangements.