In a (Not) Vase on Monday

To celebrate five years of In a Vase on Monday, Cathy, our fabulous host, issued a challenge to use anything besides a vase as a container this week.  Yesterday was  Armistice Day/Remembrance Day/Veteran's Day.  This year marked the one hundredth anniversary of the signing of the armistice signed between the allies of World War One and Germany, ending the first world war at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.  In the U.S. it is a day to thank all veterans for their service to our country.

For the first of today's offerings I chose a horn made by a veteran of World War II, my father, who seemed happiest when he was making things.

Perhaps I inherited my love of the shape of oak leaves and acorns from my father.  

It seemed only fitting to use oak leaves and acorns foraged from the park nearby. 

When he was 17 years old, my father made these hearts for my mother (one with her first initial and the other with his)  before he shipped out.  I think that he wore one on a chain around his neck and she kept hers until they were reunited.  They lived for years, tied together by a now deteriorated string, in my mother's jewelry box.  My father didn't talk much about the war but was very proud of the Nazi flag that he ripped down from a flagpole in an occupied country.  It was kept stored away for many years and when my mother died, none of us wanted to keep the flag or have it to fall into the wrong hands.  It took some time but my niece found a museum  that would take it.

My dad's pocket watch was added  and I tried to set it to 11:00 in honor of the day but couldn't figure out how to do it.  It obviously stopped at 7:08 but when?  Some things are forgotten over time but others must be remembered: The horror of war, those who have served, those who have paid the ultimate price for freedom.

To all of the families who have and continue to sacrifice on behalf of the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I offer my heartfelt gratitude.  May there come a day when the world truly "shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

In honor of Cathy's fifth anniversary of IaVoM,  I wanted to do something a bit different and thought of this black box that my father gave my mother many years ago.  It's faux Argillite and, although it wasn't really her style, it sat on her dresser, containing some of her jewelry, until her death.

Because Cathy is a gem, it's fitting that this celebratory assemblage should contain some of autumn's jewels along with thanks and congratulations on five years and a wish for many more!   A walk in the park and through my garden yielded quite a bounty, only a fraction of which got used.  Arbutus unedo fruit.

A brooch of maple leaves, acorns and a fatsia flower.

Gingko leaf "flower."

Phytolacca americana "earrings."

Spruce cones, acorns, and arbutus fruit brooch.   The pearls are strung Arbutus unedo flowers.  Center top is a spray of dried Stachyurus praecox blooms left from last winter.

I was going to create more jewelry-like items for a more literal interpretation of jewelry box but decided that I liked this just the way it was (lazy.)  Other contents are oak leaves, a dried seed head of Angelica stricta 'Purpurea,' acorn caps from an oak in the park that drops the caps in little adorable bunches on stems, Callicarpa americana, and iris foetidissima berries (foraged from last week's arrangement.)  For more In a (not) Vase on Monday offerings, click over to Cathy's blog!

Also named Kathy  is the middle of my three sisters whose heart and breathing stopped this week.  I'm truly grateful for the emergency medical technicians who were able to resuscitate her, that she is recovering in hospital, and will make a full recovery after a procedure.