The "Extra" Gift

I think I have posted before about using things from my late mother to make holiday gifts to give to the family. It makes it feel as if she is watching over us and is, I think, a lovely way to use her things instead of just putting them in a drawer or closet.

My mom was not the world's best cook...she certainly tried. My brother and I got three meals a day as well as plenty of treats but my mom was a "safe" cook. She used very little spices and pretty much stuck to good old American cuisine. She did have her specialties-her meat loaf was one of my favorites and made with a brown gravy on top instead of ketchup. I also loved her pancakes. She made them from scratch and wanted to be sure they were nutritious-especially if they were to be a dinner food as they so often were. That made them dense and rubbery-just the way I liked them. Imagine my surprise when years later I found out pancakes were meant to be light and fluffy...but that didn't change my mind-I always loved hers best.

What I am getting around to is that there weren't many original recipes of hers to pass on but we did have our favorites and everyone wanted copies. When I set out looking, I realized that I had very few recipes in her handwriting-which is what I think the girls were longing for.

I also had just a few pieces of her silver left from when I was a girl and in the pattern that I remember our table set with every day.

I decided to put the two things together and make the women in our family a recipe card holder that serves double duty as a memento of my mom. I copied some of her favorite recipes and then found enough originals that everyone could have one in her hand. I bent the tines on a salad fork to hold a recipe card. My hope is that this will be a useful gift but also a lovely picture to keep in the kitchen to remind us all that mom is watching over us-always did and always will.

I chose a white washed frame because we all have such different decor in our kitchens but I am not crazy about how bland it came out so I am going to encourage everyone to paint their frames to make it more their own. I hope they get as much joy using it as I did looking back over so many memories when I was making it. Stay tuned.

I also felt bad as I was removing some of the decor in my bedroom to put up Christmas. Since one of the things being put away for a bit was my mom's framed pin, I remembered that I had two of her Christmas pins. It wasn't hard to frame them up and put them into the display. I love that so much of her stuff is now being used instead of just sitting in a box somewhere.

Always more to share, so stay tuned.