Heirloom Quality Choosing Gifts With Lasting Charm, Appeal

Whatever you call them - heirlooms, keepsakes or mementos - they are the things in life that have special meaning to you and your family.

Keepsakes might be very expensive - an armoire, a rolltop desk, a grandfather clock - or they could be of no significant value: an old button that belonged to a favorite aunt, Grandpa’s Sunday school perfect attendance pin or your daughter’s first drawing.

You can create new heirlooms, and the memories that make them special, just by owning them. In time, they will become heirlooms.

This is the perfect season to do so. It is the time of weddings, graduations, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and what more gracious gift is there than one that will be treasured for years and passed on to another generation?

Besides, keepsakes offer a wonderful decorating bonus: They infuse a home with warmth and personality. A big piece of furniture such as a chest or a trunk might define a corner of a library or the foot of a bed. Pretty lace-trimmed or embroidered pillowcases add elegance, and picture frames with family photos give a table character.

Most of the best future heirlooms have an antique quality. Some might even incorporate elements with age. A collection of cinnabar lacquer boxes, for example, carved with traditional motifs, are inset with shards of 19th-century porcelain. No two are alike, and the blue and white porcelain beautifully sets off the strong red, underscored with black and gold decoration. The boxes, imported for Gump’s, measure 6 inches by 3 1/2 inches-by-3 inches tall and cost $28 each. The colorful boxes, though distinctly Oriental in styling, would blend in with most interiors. Useful as well as decorative, they make nice containers for desktop items or jewelry.

Other potential keepsakes are appealing just because they’re oldfashioned objects that aren’t used much anymore. A silver-plated footed inkwell and pen stand in the Sugar Hill catalog faithfully copies an English antique. The silver pierced filigree design adds sparkle to a desk, and each of the 2 1/2-inch-high bottles can be filled with ink. The set measures 7 1/2 inches long-by-5 inches wide and sells for $69 (pen not included).

Other objects are being reproduced with special attention to the meticulous detailing that still distinguishes them. Chicago jeweler Elaine Milin was so taken by an antique bouquet holder that she was inspired to design one for brides in sterling silver.

Presentation is important to Milin. Each bouquet holder is signed, numbered and packaged in a purple velvet pouch. She includes a page of parchment bearing the bride and groom’s name and date of wedding (or information marking any other special event the holder might be intended for) in calligraphy. The filigreed tapered holder, which can be fitted with glass for fresh flowers or filled with dried flowers, sells for $1,350. With a stand it’s $1,750.

On its side or in the stand, the bouquet holder might rest on a mantel in the company of a clock, framed art or candlesticks, or it might grace a tea table beside a sofa. Fill it with seasonal dried or fresh flowers as a daily reminder of the special event for which it was used - or until the next march down the aisle.

A Kansas City, Mo., artist working in silver takes a more contemporary approach to design. Yet her pieces are every bit as collectible and have obvious heirloom quality.

Robyn Nichols is inspired by the beauty and grace of nature executed in three dimensions. She prefers to polish her metal to its highest sheen, even though she may combine the sleek look with traditional techniques of forging, repousse and chasing.

The conical shape of Nichols’ garlic-top salt and pepper shakers is enhanced by stemlike swirls encircling the tops. They would be a welcome gift because they’re lovely sculptures in addition to being functional objects. The shakers, $1,260 a pair, are available at Hall’s in Kansas City, other fine department stores and through the artist.

You may admire the fine craft of an artisan like Nichols, but you also might consider making something yourself.

Objects made lovingly by hand and passed from one generation to the next have special appeal. Something as simple as a birdhouse Dad assembled when he was a little boy or a needlepoint that shows the uneven stitches of a great-aunt is charming.

A particularly appropriate idea in Victorian Hearts & Flowers magazine is an elegant antique patchwork throw sewn from pieces of satin fabric in a rainbow of colors, tied with yarn and trimmed with a deep fringe.

In days gone by, ornamental throws made of expensive, often delicate fabrics, were displayed in parlors as status symbols. What would make such a throw valuable as a keepsake today is to use fabrics with some sentimentality - fragments of children’s clothes, for example, or pieces of old silk ties that belonged to Dad.

A how-to pattern is available for $3.50 by mail from Better Homes & Gardens magazine. Since it has only one piece, such a project is relatively easy to complete.

Photos, of course, are the most popular means of preserving family memories. Stored in a handsome album, you’ll be proud to leave them out on the coffee table. An excellent source for photo albums is the Exposures catalog.

For a collection of wedding photos, there’s a lovely white brocade book, trimmed with braiding and adorned with a decorative silk tassel and faux pearl studs. The 11-by-12-inch album has a gold-toned three-ring binder and comes with a choice of photo pages. The album, which costs $65, is lined in ivory moire silk.

Exposures also offers masculine leather, tapestry, wood veneer, marbleized paper and even blue and white chinoiserie toile albums. One leather album is decorated in a Harlequin pattern in sage green and natural calfskin diamonds, topstitched and trimmed with brown suede. It measures 10-by-12 inches and sells for $69. The price range of albums from Exposures is $39 to $75.

Other keepsakes might be housed in a curio cabinet. The Howard Miller Co. has combined a pair of traditions by teaming curio shelving with a grandfather clock, thus keeping time for generations as it preserves moments of time in a family’s treasures.

One of the newest grandfathercum-curio clocks is made of Windsor cherry with columns and is etched on the sides. The case is mirrored and lighted and has glass shelves. The clock face has Roman numerals, the pendulum is made of polished brass and there’s a triple chime movement. This grand addition to an entry hallway, living or family room sells for $2,905.

Besides grandfather clocks, other large pieces of furniture, particularly those that show the maker’s hand, are the kinds of collectibles that will likely be handed down.

Good examples are the distinctive pieces of hand-painted furnishings designed by John and Tracy Porter of Stonehouse Farm Goods in Princeton, Wis.

There’s a sense of reality to the painted images because the couple often are inspired by scenes of nature - flowers, butterflies, birds - on the 21-acre farm where they live.

It’s the way the Porters combine patterns - stripes with flowers; polka dots; whirly lines, such as those on a half-moon desk, which is predominantly red - that sometimes adds a whimsical touch. Tracy’s inspiration for the desk, which measures 40 inches high-by-44 inches wide-by-24 inches deep, was a historical textile pattern on old rugs.

“I love rich colors and wanted to create something really striking that you might do a room around,” she says. The desk sells for $2,750.

A really engaging piece is a twodoor armoire with a gently scalloped top. It measures 75 inches tall-by-24 inches deep-by-43 inches wide. On the front panels is a menagerie of jungle animals that stand out on a khaki shaded ground. The doors sit like framed art in the black cabinet and are further decorated with vines that loosely encircle them. The top is banded in a black and khaki stripe.

Such an armoire works well in a gentleman’s library, den or as an entertainment center. It sells for $5,200.

Whether heirlooms are old, show off exquisite hand craftsmanship or have a gemlike quality, the common thread is oneself. Our keepsakes, after all, are our souvenirs of life, those pieces that keep happy and celebratory events and people alive in our memories.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Sources Exposures, Dept. 00401, 6401 Memory Lane, Oshkosh, WI 54906; (800) 572-2502. Gump’s Mail Order, 50 Campton Alley, San Francisco, CA 94109; (800) 284-8677. Howard Miller, 860 E. Main Ave., Zeeland, MI 49464-1300; (616) 772-9131. Leni M Inc., 50 E. Oak St., Chicago, IL 60611; (312) 943-3600. Personal Works of Art Inc., Jewelry & Tableware by Robyn Nichols, 2000 Grand Ave., Kansas City, MO 64108-1862; (816) 474-1731. Stonehouse Farm Goods Inc., Box 146, Route 1, Princeton, WI 54968; (414) 295-4755. Sugar Hill, 1037 Front Ave., Columbus, GA 31902-1300; (800) 344-6125. To get a reprint of the pattern and instructions for the satin pocket throw, mail $3.50 in check or money order made out to Better Homes & Gardens. Send it to Special Interest Publications, Quilt Pattern, Meredith Corp., LS 343, Des Moines, IA 50309-3023.