May 24, 2002 By Cindy Ekas-Brown 9 min read

MOUNT PLEASANT – Tragedy struck Kelly Kashura’s family six years ago when her 51-year-old father Mitchell was suddenly diagnosed with two malignant brain tumors that eventually took his life. Kelly said her father, who worked at National Tube Steel in McKeesport, seemed perfectly healthy until he mysteriously lost the use of his little finger on his right hand one day.

His family was devastated when a MRI test revealed that he had lung cancer that had spread to his brain. Doctors gave family members the depressing news that Mitchell’s chances for recovery were not good.

“It was a shock when we found out that my father had cancer because we didn’t even know he was sick,” Kelly said. “My father’s illness was very difficult on the entire family.”

Faced with the devastating news, Kelly, who was then a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, made a decision that would change the course of her life.

Kelly dropped out of college to help her mother, Susan, who doesn’t drive, take her father to doctor’s appointments and cancer treatments at Pittsburgh area hospitals.

As the cancer spread and Mitchell’s condition continued to deteriorate, Kelly helped her mother take care of her father at the family’s small farm in Perryopolis.

When her father became ill, Kelly said her mother asked her to help because her older sister, Tracey Kashura, had just graduated from college and had accepted a new full-time position working for Verizon.

With her own college plans put on hold, Kelly realized that she needed a job with flexible hours so she would be available to help her family.

Kelly accepted a job with Veronica Warren of Perryopolis, who creates dried and silk floral arrangements, swags, wreaths and other crafts at her business, Liberty Flowers.

The job originally appealed to Kelly because of its flexible hours, but she soon began to appreciate the creativity of the work and its ability to help her deal with her father’s illness.

“Veronica taught me everything that I needed to know about creating floral designs,” said the 25-year-old woman during a recent interview at her Mount Pleasant home where she lives with her mother. “I thought it was difficult at the time, but the work did help me to accept my father’s illness.”

Kelly said the floral designing job was very important to her because she had attended craft shows with her father when she was a little girl.

“That’s something that my father and I shared together when I was growing up,” she said.

“It made the work seem very important to me because of the special bond that we had shared. My father always liked to attend craft shows, and he liked to do woodworking,” she added. “He never sold his crafts because he liked to give them away. It was his hobby.”

After her father died, Kelly said she began to realize that creating floral arrangements gave her peace and comfort because “we loved craft shows and we shared that part of our lives together.”

About three years ago, Kelly quit her job with Veronica Warren and began her own craft business called Kelly’s Blossoms.

She is one of many local and national crafters, who will be featured at the Pennsylvania Arts & Crafts Country Festival, which will take place today through Monday at the Fayette County Fairgrounds on Route 119 between Uniontown and Connellsville.

As the deadline for the Fayette County craft show quickly approaches, Kelly said she has been spending more than 12 hours each day, working in the garage of her Mount Pleasant home where she creates her unique floral arrangements, swags, wreaths and other crafts. Angel, her 2-year-old bassett hound, usually sits next to her as she works on her creations.

“Angel is my baby, and she likes to sit next to me when I’m working on my crafts. I feed Angel ‘people food’ like pizza for lunch,” she said as she petted her dog and started to laugh. “Angel and I have a lot of fun when we’re working on the crafts.”

After her father’s death in 1999, Kelly and her mother, Susan, sold the family’s Perryopolis farm and moved to a split entry home in Mount Pleasant, which was closer to other relatives. Although the family’s Perryopolis farm wasn’t very large, Susan and Kelly had trouble taking care of the land after Mitchell’s death.

Making floral swags and wreaths really doesn’t seem like work to Kelly, who spends as little as 30 minutes creating a 4-foot-long swag.

“It’s really not work to me because it’s something that I love to do,” she said. “I guess I’m very lucky to have a job that I actually love.

“My sister, Tracey, tells me all of the time that she is so jealous of what I do because she spends all of her time in an office,” she added.

When Kelly begins to work on a swag or wreath, she explained that she attaches wild twigs to a metal frame that she uses as the base for her designs.

She buys the wild twigs from Valerie White, who gathers them on her Somerset County farm.

After the wild twigs have been attached to the metal frames, Kelly glues eucalyptus, freeze-dried roses and then smaller dried flowers that she uses as accents to the wild twigs.

Kelly buys the freeze-dried roses from a Greensburg florist, who makes them and sells them at wholesale prices to other local florists.

Smaller dried flowers that Kelly uses as accents include gold yarrow, coned-shaped saracena, lavendar, heather and alata, which are tiny pink flowers in clusters. Kelly also handcrafts color-coordinated bows to add the finishing touches to her creations. Kelly said she sells a large 25- to 30-inch wreath for about $38 or a 3-foot-long swag for $36.

“People like certain colors because they match almost everything like ivory and light pink,” she said.

“But I like to mix at least three different colors into each one of my arrangements to give them some life so they aren’t boring.”

Kelly said the most sought-after colors right now are ivory, light pink and mauve because they will match almost any home’s d’cor and wallpaper design. Other popular colors are blue, burgundy and hunter green.

“Berry swags and wreaths with plaid bows are also very big sellers right now because country designs are still very popular,” she said. “Americana is hot because everybody is really into patriotism in the wake of Sept. 11 and the war in Afghanistan.

“Americana designs are usually top sellers at craft shows this time of the year because of the Memorial Day and July 4 holidays,” she added.

Kelly said it has been difficult for her to prepare for the Pennsylvania Arts & Crafts Country Festival this year because she was the maid of honor at her best friend’s wedding on Saturday, May 18, one week before the festival.

Her best friend, Melissa Rayman of Perryopolis married Francis Keilbach of Mount Braddock.

Melissa asked Kelly to handcraft the floral arrangements, decorations and bouquets for the wedding. And of course, Kelly couldn’t say no.

“We grew up together, and we were best friends since we were little girls,” Kelly said.

“Melissa asked me to do it, and I promised her that I would take care of everything for her wedding,” she added. “I made a big arch decorated with silk flowers and white lights, two floral topiaries and the tulle and lights hanging from the ceiling that are connected to a big kissing ball in the center of the room.”

Even though she has been busy preparing for the wedding, Kelly said she wasn’t worried about creating as many as 100 swags, wreaths, birdhouses and wicker baskets for the arts and crafts festival.

“I work best under pressure when I have a deadline looming over me,” she said. “I need a deadline to really get me going.”

This year, Kelly and her mother, Susan, have traveled to craft shows in New York, Ohio, New Jersey, Virginia as well as Pennsylvania. She also sells her craft items through the Crafters Showcase, which is located at the Southland Plaza near the Century III Mall. Kelly rents a 16-foot space for $270 a month, and she is required to pay the owner of the store 10 percent of the money she earns.

“We had 16 shows lined up through the end of the year,” Kelly said.

“It usually takes me about two weeks to be fully prepared for a show,” she added. “This is all that I do. My mother helped me out financially when I was first getting started. But I’m basically on my own right now.”

Kelly and Susan said their favorite part of the craft business is traveling from one craft show to another, visiting other parts of the country and meeting new people along the way.

“I guess you could say that we’re gypsies at heart, and we love to travel,” Kelly said.

“We’ve became friends with some of the craft people, and we always look forward to seeing them again,” she added. “It’s like a reunion.”

The Kashura family spent a lot of time traveling on vacations every year to Maine, Minnesota, Myrtle Beach, S.C., and even took Caribbean cruises when Kelly and Tracey were growing up.

We traveled a lot when my father was alive, and it’s something that our family always enjoyed, Kelly said.

“When my mother and I travel to the craft shows, it reminds us of the time that we spent together as a family when my sister and I were children and our father was still alive.

“Those times are something that we will always cherish because they were very special to our family,” she added.