A Thoughtful Recollection.....

Pansy means thoughts

"I send thee pansies while the year is young,
Yellow as sunshine, purple as the night;
Flowers of remembrance, ever fondly sung
By all the chiefest of the sons of light;
And if in recollection lives regret
For wasted days, and dreams that were not true,
I tell thee that the pansy "freaked with jet"
I still the heart's~ease that the poets knew.
Take all the sweetness of a gift unsought
And for the pansies send me back a thought."

~Sarah Doudney~

Pansy is just an English way of saying the French word "pens'ee" which means thought, and people used to send these flowers for their nearest and dearest to remember them by. The small velvet plants we grow in our borders were first bred in Victorian times from the Wild Pansy which Shakespeare described as Love-in-idleness.

Wild Pansy has always been a favorite with children and country folk who have given it many affectionate names ~ Two~faces~under~the~sun, Face~and~hood, and Tickle~my~fancy. It has also been called Herb Trinity, because there are often three colors in the one flower, reminding us of the Holy Trinity. Perhaps the best known of all the names is Heartsease, for it was believed that by carrying the flower about with you, you would ensure the love of your sweetheart.I recently received a most thoughtful gift from a special blog friend and I wanted to thank her for her thoughtful kindness. The sweet pansies on the gift tag she made are being extended out in friendship all the way from the Netherlands. Lili sent me a sweet little gift package full of French and Dutch ephemera! Lili, thank you for such sweet words and extension of friendship, I really love everything you sent and can't wait to use it in my artwork.

This pretty envelope included...Neat old ads...Dictionary and book pages...I just love the font used to print these pages...Bird images...Tags...Cards...Little envelopes spilling over with stamps, cigar bands, game pieces, buttons, bows, and other bits and bobs...Now if only my schedule was not so busy nor my studio so full of packing boxes so I could play with all this! Lili, thank you for your thoughtful recollection of me in your generous gift.I scanned and cropped a few of the pages to share with you, feel free to snag the images below for use in your artwork. Enjoy!
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I hope to slow down enough to have time to create something, anything really, to share with you in the near future. Right now I have an antique dining set calling to me from the driveway to come out and spruce her up and restore her to her former glory before she moves into her new home with Darling Daughter.

Blessings,
Miss Sandy