Felicity = A Repurposed Wine Label

 

 

 

 

This card was made around a wine label that a close friend took a liking to when she had gotten several empty colored bottles from her neighbor to donate to my bottle tree, along with a couple of hand-made clay vessels that she knew I would like. I salvaged it and incorporated it into a card for her 17th birthday.  I used a leftover partial page of decorative paper, several old shoe buttons, and some scraps of hemp cord to fashion the card, as well as a little glue, paint and some ink stamping that reflects her personality.

Since she is a wonderful poet, I also added a dictionary definition of the name of the wine inside the card -

" fe·lic·i·ty
1  the state of being happy; 
2 a pleasing manner especially in art or writing,

and the last stanza from a poem that refers to the word as well, about memories -
 
"...But in a jar put up by Felicity,
The summer which never maybe was
Has been captured and preserved.
And when we unscrew the lid
And slice off a piece
And let it linger on our tongue:
Unicorns become possible again."
~ by John Tobias

(entire poem about childhood memories is printed at end of post)

Since the card was not a standard size, I fashioned a matching envelope. It is much more meaningful to me than a boughten card would have been, and I hope she enjoys receiving it as much as I enjoyed creating it for her...

(Just a happy note to say that she did love the card ~ just as I'd hoped she would...) 
 
 
Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle Received from a Friend Called Felicity
~ by John Tobias

During that summer
When unicorns were still possible;
When the purpose of knees
Was to be skinned'
When shiny horse chestnuts
(hollowed out
Fitted with straws
Crammed with tobacco
Stolen from butts in family ashtrays)
Were puffed in green lizard silence
While straddling thick branches
Far above and away
From the softening effects of civilization;
During that summer—
Which may never have been at all;
But which has become more real
Than the one that was—
Watermelons ruled.

Thick pink imperial slices
Melting frigidly on sun-parched tongues
Dribbling from chins;
Leaving the best part,
The black bullet seeds,
To be spit out in rapid fire
Against the wall
Against the wind
Against each other;

And when the ammunition was spent,
There was always another bite:
It was a summer of limitless bites,
Of hungers quickly felt
And quickly forgotten
With the next careless gorging.

The bites are fewer now.
Each one is savored lingeringly,
Swallowed reluctantly.

But in a jar put up by Felicity,
The summer which never maybe was
Has been captured and preserved.
And when we unscrew the lid
And slice off a piece
And let it linger on our tongue:
Unicorns become possible again.