Date: Fri 02-Jan-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

beeswax-ornaments-Richardson

Full Text:

(Victoria Richardson, beeswax ornaments, home decorations, etc)

NOTE: THIS IS CORRECT DATE ARTICLE RAN/DISREGARD FILE WITH 1997 DATE

No Patterns Or Instruction Books: Making Decorations For The Home From The

Heart

(with cuts)

BY SHANNON HICKS

When Victoria Richardson and her family moved into the circa 1840 home on

Academy Lane in Newtown a few years ago, the exposed beams and beautifully

redone building provided a unique opportunity for any decorator.

Vickie, a mother of three children and someone who has always enjoyed being

creative, saw enormous potential throughout the building she and her family

now call home. Today, the inside of the home is very comfortable to walk into,

thanks to hours of creative energy Vickie has channeled into making decorative

accessories for every room of the house.

Vickie began this creative work of hers - she makes samplers, dolls and

painted boxes - about six or seven years ago, when she and her husband

purchased a home in Minnesota. She also makes beeswax ornaments and candles,

all by hand in a painstaking process. When the family moved to Newtown, along

came the furniture, clothing... and more of Vickie's creativity.

"I wanted nice things to decorate our house with, but everything was too

untouchable... so expensive," she said. "So I decided to approach this for

myself.

"I've always liked to make things." Taking her creative feeling a step

further, Vickie has taken the initiative to try projects on her own, rather

than following instructions from books or kits for most of her undertakings.

For the dolls, she works without patterns. With three young children to raise,

Vickie saves most of her working time for the night hours, after the rest of

the family has gone to sleep.

Living in such an old building inspires Vickie's creativity. She enjoys

working with her hands, creating projects to adorn her home similar to the

kinds of objects that would have been found in homes over a century ago.

"It's funny, because I try to think back to what my life was like eight years

ago, before my first daughter was born and before I began making so many

things, and I wonder again and again: `What did I do before all this?'"

To find fabrics with period patterns from an earlier era, Vickie travels to

Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts or up to Shelburne, Vt., where she not

only finds such fabrics, but postcards with ideas. She also loves to visit the

Museum of the City of New York, which owns a large collection of decorative

art.

"I'm fascinated with all of that," Vickie laughs. "I dream about it!"

Every fall, Vickie makes nearly 100 beeswax ornaments, and four to five dozen

candles. She uses pure Connecticut-grown beeswax; she purchases large blocks

of raw wax from Don Taylor, a former beekeeper who lives in Danbury. The

blocks are brought home, melted down, and impurities are filtered out.

"We - Americans - tend to want things done immediately." She snaps her

fingers. "This isn't necessarily a hard process, but it's very time

consuming."

"I'm very visual," she says. "I like to just eyeball things, to try to

reproduce things I see and I like." It seems to be working very well for her:

on a recent visit to her home, the dining room table was covered with

different projects she was working on for the holidays, with rows of the

ornaments along the edge of the table. Bunches of her hand-dipped candles

adorn the large beams that run across the ceiling in the family's living room,

and there were at least a dozen of Vickie's beeswax ornaments on the family's

Christmas tree.

Last month, Vickie's talents were shared with the town, when her handmade

beeswax ornaments were featured at the Matthew Curtiss House during Newtown's

annual Holiday Festival. At the headquarters for Newtown Historical Society, a

small display was set up presenting examples of Vickie's ornaments, at $5

each, for the public to purchase. Vickie was one of the costumed docents

welcoming visitors to the saltbox dwelling during the run of last month's

festival.

Some of Vickie's ornaments are given away as gifts, many are used around the

home, and some are sold; for any of the ornaments she sells, Vickie donates a

portion of her profit to the Newtown Historical Society/Matthew Curtiss House.

Not surprisingly, considering how much Vickie loves re-creating things of the

past, her family has a membership with the town's historical society. Vickie

has volunteered hours of her time to serve as a docent during open house

events at its headquarters.

"I love the Matthew Curtiss House," she said. "I love being a part of that!"

Perhaps when she runs out of space in her own home for her myriad ornaments,

Vickie's next undertaking will be at the Matthew Curtiss House. Any of her

works would feel right at home in the historic building.