This is over three years old now, and it’s still my favorite thing. Now, the lighting is bad in my bathroom, so I didn’t go crazy with taking too many pics. And to be honest, I’m too tired to clean up the bathroom sink that it is hanging next too, so it’s fine with me that the artificial lighting isn’t great any way.
But do you see this masterpiece? It was made for me by my adorable husband and precious children, right after we moved into our home. I didn’t have anything to hang my jewelry on, and I wanted something home made for Mother’s Day. My husband took the kids out into our yard, and had them each pick a fallen stick off the ground, hammered nails along the length of each… and then set the kids up with paint and let them paint the sticks.
Bless his heart for that, because if you know my husband out of the office, you will know he isn’t the most handy guy with tools. He is brilliant, smart, generous, kind, and open minded… but he ain’t great with a hammer. So that makes this all the more precious to me. Because I can just imagine him now, with a handful of nails, hunched over a stick that probably kept rolling away from him, trying to hit a nail into a narrow twig, not wider then a half inch. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what love is.
I will never, ever, ever replace this. It will literally have to compost right on my wall.
The kids were only 4 and 6 when they made this for me and gave it to me for Mother’s Day. Now 7 and 9, they seem like entirely different creatures from the ones who ran paint along these sticks for me. The love is the same, but the expression is different. Now they can write my name, make me a card, buy me a gift. But back then… before reading and writing and cards and gifts… there were sticks and paint and ribbon.
And I love that more and more each day.
You all can easily make this for yourself, too! Just two sticks, some nails, wire (that I wrapped around the ends of the two sticks to have one stick hang off the other one) and a ribbon (you could skip the ribbon and just perch the branch right on the wall on two nails) and you have and organic, rustic holder that keeps your necklaces, bracelets, and eyewear off your sink ledge.
I’m just throwing that out there, because with Xmas growing ever near, it makes a great gift. I should know, I got this one as a gift from the heart and I wouldn’t sell it for the world. xoxo