Have you ever made your own ornaments? While looking through the Ford Library and Museum’s Digital Artifact Collection, I came across twelve ornaments made by Ursula Astras, a straw artist. Astras was a Lithuanian refugee who settled in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the late 1940s.

These ornaments are so intricate and lovely. Astras gifted them to the Fords in 1975, and it’s not hard to see why they elected to keep these as part of their personal collection until their deaths.

Author: Brooke Clement