Labor of Love
CENTER TOWNSHIP — About 150 ornaments dangle from Margy Tebay's white, lighted Christmas tree's cascading twigs as each twinkle illuminates its one-of-a-kind nature.
“I counted them one time,” said Tebay, 92, with a laugh. “There's probably not another one (tree) in the whole world.”
Tebay, a Concordia at the Orchard resident, made ornaments from colored crystals for about 40 years with a total that could stretch to the thousands.
“I made them for all the holidays,” she said, adding she gave away a majority of the ornaments.
During Christmas, she gets many visitors who stop by her room to admire the ornaments on her Christmas tree.
Setting up her tree takes a full day, Tebay said. This year, her family helped her place the ornaments near the top of the tree she could not reach because she has difficulty standing for long periods.
At one time, she had a live Christmas tree.
“But, the green tree, they just got lost,” she said of her ornaments.Her son bought her the lighted tree to make the ornaments pop, Tebay said.When the air conditioning blows against the branches, the ornaments dance.Tebay started making them with her three sons to give to their grandparents for Christmas.At the time her middle son was in fourth grade and he needed an idea for a craft he could give to his grandparents.With five days before Christmas, Tebay searched and stumbled across a picture of an ornament.“They didn't come out anything like the picture, but it was enough to get me started,” she said. “It was so different than what I did.”Once her sons returned to school after Christmas break, her creative journey began.Tebay recalled the first ornaments' rough appearance, she said.For the next three years, Tebay honed her skills.“I had a lot of rejects,” she said, chuckling.
Her most devastating errors were baking blunders.“I had the oven a little too hot and they had bubbles all over them,” she said. “I learned to lower the oven.”Once word of her ornaments circulated, Tebay even taught a craft lesson to over 40 people at Armco Park.First, Tebay draws a pattern with a pencil on heavy-duty aluminum foil. Next, she rolls clay to make its border.Then, she fills them in with dozens of colorful crystals and bakes them in the oven as she decreases the oven temperature over time.“It was comforting,” Tebay said about the way she felt making ornaments.When her children started to drive, they had a midnight curfew. Worried about her sons on the road, Tebay looked out the kitchen window until they pulled in the driveway.“I would work on them at night 'til the kids came in,” she said. “By that time I'm hooked on the late movie so they're in bed and I'm up all night.”
Next, she would paint a cookie sheet full of baked ornaments to add detail, such as hair on characters.With a month between each holiday, Tebay worked in advance to generate ornaments for the particular season. For the Fourth of July, she made George Washington and Paul Revere.“I made more Halloween than anything,” she said. “Pumpkins are easy to make.”Outside the Christmas season when her tree is not up, Tebay displayed her creations from the front of her windows.When her children or relatives got married, she made a bell for them and gave it at the rehearsal dinner.She also gave the ornaments to churches and gifted them at holiday parties.As time passed, Tebay's designs became more intricate, she said. Once, she made a globe she gave to her neighbor.Unless they fall on carpet, the ornaments are fragile and easily breakable.One time, she accidentally bumped the table on which her sorted ornaments sat.“There was some of my favorite ones on there,” she said. “Would you believe they were saved? The others broke into dozens of pieces.”
The world inspires Tebay.“I see designs everywhere,” she said. “I see patterns everywhere.”Etched in the corner of her ornaments is the year of their creation.Tebay felt thrilled the moment she discovered her talent.Her advice to the creative: “You don't quit. Stick with it.”Tebay's Christmas tree full of ornaments and the oohs and ahs when people visit is a reminder of her years of crafting.Although she no longer makes ornaments because of health concerns, she was glad she did because she gained perseverance.“I couldn't stop,” she said. “I just love making them.I thought I would do these the rest of my life.”
