—Lancaster Farming. Saturday. November 17. 1973 22 •u *y i v 5* I :$ V $ I 1 ••;: I TT - "'"m Homestead Mrs. Cora Frymyer Shows Yon can have Who says Christmas can’t be bright and cheerful without electrical decorations? If everyone would start now to meke Christmas arrangements this could be the merriest Christmas ever because putting yourself into Christmas is what counts. One who makes all kinds of arrangements and gives them as gifts also is Mrs. Cora E. Frymyer of 1545 Lampeter Road, Lampeter. She has been drying flowers and greens and using them for arrangements for over 20 years. She has put on demonstrations on making arrangements and gives some ideas for decorating and making your own arrangements. Mrs. Frymyer says “It’s a hobby with me and a relaxation.” She says, “Once you start, it makes one more creative all the time.” She took a few lessons, has a lot of books on the subjects related to making arrangements but has a lot of her own ideas which she puts to use. For outdoor decorating she suggests making wreaths to hang on your doors or beside them. Decorate your lamp post, mail box, porch railings and windows. Open your curtains so your tree or other decorations can be seen by people going by. When it comes to making arrangements for inside your house Mrs. Frymyer uses a lot of real and artificial fruit, nuts, pine cones, candles and greens. She hangs a garland of greens, real or artificial, over the archway in her living room and fastens ar tificial fruit, cones and a few Mrs. Cora Frymyer holds a candle ring arrangement she made. She also made the arrangements on the table and in the background. Notes Pat Erway, Editor a Merry Christmas Without Energy-Consuming Lights Farm Feature C Writer Mrs. Charles^ McSparran Christmas balls to it. Mrs. Frymyer has started to make some arrangements which are strictly her own original creations but which might help people looking for new ideas. The Mary Ferree Society has been selling used metal drawers that have wooden dividers in them. She didn’t use the drawer itself but used the dividers to fashion a shadow box. She used old Christmas cards in some sections to give a background for some of the minature figures of animals and people. She combined little twigs, dried evergreens, candles and made hanging bird cages out of plastic boxes, minature wreaths, shepherd and wisemen scenes, a snowman and one impressive section was praying nuns. When it is hung on the wall she will use greens around it. Another idea for an arrangement —she created a snow scene usmg a square of inch styrofoam for a base. For a tree she used a manzanita branch, painted it with flat white paint and sprayed it with mica glitter when it was wet, then inserted it in the base. Under the tree she placed little men which she •*<. . *% fashioned from packs of long, slender candy rolls for bodies and made feet and mittens of different colored pieces of felt. Her mother crocheted caps for them of different colored yarns. She completed the scene by using styrofoam balls of different sizes which resembled snowballs. For a dining room table cen terpiece she used a large red candle, surrounded with dried boxwood and blue spruce mounted in a styrofoam ring and stuck artificial red apples here and there in the greens for added color. Mrs. Frymyer made a tree using a styrofoam cone for a base. She glued pieces of pipe cleaner into sweet gum balls and pushed the pipe cleaners into the cone. It takes more gum balls than you would expect. She used 260 balls to cover the cone completely, then sprayed the tree with gold paint. A friend made her a walnut wooden base to set the tree on. It is most attractive. She received a red ribbon on it at the Lampeter fair this year. She received a blue ribbon at the fair on a dried flower wreath. In it she used celosia, golden rod, teasel, okra pods, dock, pearly everlasting, statice and strawflowers. They were all dried by hanging to dry. She inserted them into a styrofoam ring. Some simple arrangements: Fill a glass compote dish with fresh fruit and preserved cedar greens. Place a candle ring of nuts and cones on a footed glass dish and insert a red candle in the middle. Mrs. Frymyer makes pine cone and nut wreaths using a styrofoam ring for a base. She also makes trees of the same materials and fruit seeds. Every room in her house has several of her arrangements and she changes them about every week. Her kitchen is most at tractive with unusual ones. She made a dried arrangement of flowers in a copper dipper and hung it on the wall. She used a cutting board as a base to mount wooden spoons. She then cut a wooden salad bowl in half and glued it to the cutting board. It made a nice container for the dried flowers. She hung it on the wall above her range. She made another wall plaque, mounting fungus on a piece of chip board. She very cleverly placed a small bird’s nest and some dried flowers on the fungus and put a brightly colored artificial bird on the dried grasses beside it. She even put a dried arrangement in a little apothecary jar and set it on her kitchen cabinet beside the range. In her dining room she framed a wooden shingle, cut a wooden salad bowl in half and glued it to the shingle. She then artistically arranged okra pods, nuts and alder pods. Mrs. Frymyer mounted drift- » •\ -* *<s, •“ v ** *• ~» *• Mrs. Frymyer holds a dried arrangement in a copper dipper. She also made the apothecary jar arrangement'with ■ dried flowers on the cabinet top and the wall plaque. wood on a cedar slab and professionally arranged dried flowers and grasses. A little carved wooden sea gull and a loon made delightful additions to this arrangement. She used dried straw flowers glued on to a cloth-covered board and mounted in a shadow box type frame. She also makes Williamsburg type arrangements using a dome glass frame and arranges various kinds of her dried flowers. Cora makes pomander arrangements. To make them she studs various fruits such as lemons, quinces, apples, oranges and pomegranates with cloves. These give off a pleasant aroma and the fruit keeps practically forever. You can hang one of these fruits in your clothes P- The beautiful wall picture and holiday nut and cone tree and wreath grace the Frymyer dining room walls. 4-^\ % t* closets to give off the spicy fragrance. She makes corn husk dolls and com husk wreaths. To make the wreaths she cut six-inch by one inch strips of corn husk, gathered four strips for each cluster, then wired them onto tooth picks. They were then inserted into a large styrofoam ring. Mrs. Frymyer drys cedar, crowsfoot, turkey beard, box wood and blue spruce in a mix ture of one part permanent an tifreeze to two parts water. She puts the greens in it for 10 days to two weeks. If the greens have yellowed she dips them in a commercially prepared dye and water solution as the dye directions call for. She presses ferns, most of the (Continued On Page 24) '• ! i nsP -< ~s»" %B> »i
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