My Trails into the Past

For as long as I remember, my mother loved to do crafts. She either got her ideas from various ladies’ magazines like Good Housekeeping , Family Circle , or Women’s Day , or she just made up the craft by reusing items into new things. One early craft I remember her making: she took a metal coffee can and placed a 78-rpm photograph record on top and placed both in the oven. The record melted down with slight folds into a bowl. She then spray-painted them gold, silver, or bronze. These became useful for candy dishes or holding a potted plant. This is why we have no 78s left in our family. Every Valentine’s Day, she made a valentine’s box to be used in one of the children’s classrooms. She started with an apple or orange cardboard box and covered it with colored paper, crepe paper, and cutout hearts. Too bad we don’t have a photo of one of her boxes. For Christmas one year, she made Christmas trees out of egg cartons. She cut out the cup portion of the cardboard cartons and arranged...

This is my second year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow . I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past . I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. My mother was a very creative person. When I was young, she had a painting studio in the backyard of our home on East 9th Street in Pittsburg. Her favorite subjects were still lifes.  I wrote about my mother on the anniversary of her  85th birthday . She also loved to do crafts and make things out of discarded or used items. She made bowls from old 78 rpm records that she melted over coffee cans in the oven and then sprayed them with gold paint. She made Christmas trees from cardboard egg cartons, painting them gold, green, or silver, and gluing in small items such as bells, angels, etc.  Here is one: Every year, she decorated a large apple box for Valentine's Day that our classroom ...