I Finally DID IT!!!

I finally did it... I cut up my mother's wedding dress.  Now one might ask why I did this... why to preserve it of course.

​Somewhere through the course of my life I have become the holder or caretaker of several generations of wedding dresses in my family.  I am a little confused as to what to do with them.  It isn't like in ages past where the up-coming generation of females in a family will look to them to wear for their own weddings.  And having only boys in my immediate family kind of nulls that option too.

​This year has been a year of examining our history and looking to the future as what to do with them.  I finally decided that even though I wasn't close to my great grandmother (that simply being by default of age), I had to preserve her dress.  Which is kind of neat because I also have my great grandfather's shirt that he wore for the wedding.  That is now one shadow box that my kids will just have to deal with later.

​​It has sooo much history packed into it. I feel like royalty being able to display it just like the castles I visited this summer and the history kept there.

​​So why cut up my mother's wedding dress?

​Well I am glad to say my mother had a sense of humor like myself.  Ask my brother who lost a set of his favorite "holely" jeans to later receive a really cool beret hippy style hat for Christmas made from those same jeans. 

​​With this kinda of inspiration, I had to ask, then why am I still hanging on to a wedding dress that no one will ever wear or see?  Again, dolls to the rescue.

It is amazing how they are such a great vehicle for preserving and showcasing our history. In this age of digital information and everything being stored on a computer it is still nice to have the opportunity to "actually touch" history.  This only occurs when we preserve some of those artifacts that we received throughout our history.

​I don't have room nor desire to create several shadow boxes of history, but I am willing to create outfits for my dolls using some of these same pieces of history. Knowing my granddaughter's little fae doll that I have sculpted will have a dress made out of my mother's wedding dress will pass on a piece of my mother.  My granddaughters will never have the opportunity to meet my mother, but they will be able to "touch" her and discover her story.