DIYs The Flowers Of Our Lives

On Christmas morning my sister, Whitney, handed me a box.

It was wrapped in paper and tied up with string. I opened the box and pushed back the corner of the tissue paper and this embroidered lid was the first thing that caught my eye.

Embroidery?

Flowers?

Tiny stitches on the lid of something?

Eagerly, I reached in to pull back the rest of the paper when I heard my sister say, “Wait a minute.”

“Before you open your present, I have to tell you the real gift. I have to tell you the most amazing, awesome, incredible thing about this handmade present that makes it all the more special. The thing that will make you treasure it like the wise men showed up with it on your doorstep.”

“What?” I said. “What could be better than embroidery and tiny bouquets and little swirls of leaves and petals?”

She looked at me and smiled.

“The flowers tell a story.”

My eyes opened wide and I jumped up and down and ran to give my sister a hug when I SAW THIS.

Wait?

What?

The flowers tell a story?

I didn’t understand? What was the story? Where had she found this?

And so instead of talking?

I listened.

If you are new here and you’ve never celebrated the holidays with us, before I tell the story of the flowers, I need to start with a little explanation. Our family makes gifts for each other every year. We started small. Someone made soap and then someone knitted something and then there was the year someone made trash cans with faces.

And then all that soaping and knitting and trash-can decorating turned into something a little more elaborate.

Like a picture of a thistle composed entirely of words from my blog.

Or tiny rolls of paper folded into artwork and turned into flowers and leaves on a book.

Or a stone doormat created from pebbles collected from every state in the contiguous United States and stamped with each state’s bird (no one actually did that, but you never know…it might happen next year).

This handmade Christmas present started at a craft fair.

Next to a table full of baskets of every shape and size and texture, my sister, Whitney, met Suzi.

Suzi the basket-maker extraordinaire.

She specializes in beautiful, one-of-a-kind handmade baskets like this one. Each is unique and special and wonderful and carefully and meticulously handcrafted by Suzi.

Look at the details of this basket.

The curls.

The swirls.

The layers.

Have you ever seen anything like it before?

It looks like a piece of art.

Suzi isn’t just a basket weaver—she’s a basket artist.

Whitney loved the baskets so much, she asked Suzi if she could collaborate with her on the baskets.

She had an idea.

Something that would take the baskets to the next level using her embroidery.

She embroidered each of the baskets in different ways. Here’s my basket that she made for me with the lid of the basket embroidered with flowers.

But not just any flowers.

You see, these flowers tell the story of our family.

She took each of the flowers from our BIRTHDAY MONTHS and arranged these petals that form the branches and leaves of our family bouquet….

…each flower representing a person in our family.

All the flowers of our lives intertwined to form a DIY family bouquet. I couldn’t help it. Tears tugged at the corners of my eyes. Watching our family grow and blossom and flourish is a joy that I never ever knew I would love so much.

And there it was.

Our family—tiny stitch after tiny stitch.

Each one more precious that the other.

For Denny there is an Aster for September.

For me there is a Primrose for February.

For Denton there is a Rose for June.

For Zachary there is a Narcissus for December.

For Courtney there is a Violet for February.

For Westleigh there is a Morning Glory for September.

For Whitney there is a Morning Glory for September.

Each flower.

Each petal—painstakingly stitched on the lid of Suzy’s handmade basket.

And in the center?

At the root of the bouquet there is a W—to weave all the flowers together.

I love the tiny stitches and the beautiful basket and the entwined leaves.

But most of all?

I love a sister with an imagination big enough to come up with a bouquet that is uniquely and wonderfully and specially….

…..US.

She knows me, that incredible sister of mine. I love watching my family grow and flourish and bloom right where we are planted with all of….

…the flowers of our lives.

PS I love you, Whitney.

I want to be you when I grow up.

And in case you needed a special gift for someone this year (wouldn’t it be amazing if you showed up with a bouquet of their birth month flower)?

Here are the flowers for each of the months:

January: Snowdrop and Carnation
February: Violet and Primrose
March: Daffodil and Jonquil
April: Daisy and Sweet Pea
May: Lily of the Valley and Hawthorn
June: Rose and Honeysuckle
July: Delphinium and Water Lily
August: Gladiolus and Poppy
September: Aster and Morning Glory
October: Marigold and Cosmos
November: Chrysanthemum
December: Holly and Narcissus

PPS My heart is so heavy because of the tragedy with the wildfires in California. It’s so overwhelming and we all want to do something and sometimes we just don’t know where to start.

I found a few resources that might help and places to donate:

You can have a meal delivered to a firefighter here.

Here are some donation opportunities with the LAFD (Los Angeles Fire Department).

Here’s the information on the California Fire Foundation.