King Midas had the magic touch and so does Rosalie Davis. Give her a tin of sparkly spray paint and she?ll turn a baygrape leaf into an angel, a cardboard paper towel holder into a Christmas cracker, and some old ?tings? into some new tings. (Tings are the official term for those squiggly bits that stick out of floral arrangements).

If you were in St. George?s for the recent Bermuda National Trust Christmas walkabout you might have noticed Ms Davis? flower arrangements in Tucker House. Shortly after the walkabout she gave a workshop on Christmas flower arranging. We caught up with her at the Coral Beach Club where she works as a gardener, and sometime florist.

?I did get a lot of positive comments about the decorations at Tucker House,? Ms Davis said. ?We got a lot of comments about the way we decorated the epergne at Tucker House. It is a very tall ornament container and then it has little cups. Before they usually put fruits in it.

?But when I did it for the first time last year I did flowers and fruits and that received a lot of comments. This year the Bermuda National Trust wanted the person who did the epergne to come back, and that was me. I like to do things that give people a lot of enjoyment.

?There was a local mother and daughter at the workshop. They were very enthusiastic. I gave the mother some tips, and she said ?you are giving away your craft secrets?. I said ?no, when you are inspired and you have a God-given talent, you share it. You don?t keep it to yourself. That would be selfish.?

Ms Davis sometimes sometimes gives craft and flower arranging workshops to the guests at Coral Beach. When we visited her she was in the middle of making a number of unique Christmas ornaments and wreaths, most of her pieces made from natural items.

?To make an angel from baygrape leaves take a green baygrape leaf, then cut it and fold it to make wings, and then spray it with varnish so that it will hold the shape when it dries,? she said. ?They are made from just two baygrape leaves, one smaller leaf for the wings and a big one for the body. Bermuda is so blessed with all the natural materials. I like to recycle what I find.?

Ms Davis? philosophy is that you don?t have to spend a lot of money on craft materials to make something nice. Some bright red Mexican pepper berries may be a nuisance in the garden, but make a cheerful addition to a flower arrangement.

Some old floral scraps from an ageing designer flower arrangement can be resprayed and used again. Some old vines torn out and thrown onto the compost heap can be twisted together to make a wreath for the door.

?At home in Jamaica we never considered it art,? said Ms Davis who has lived in Bermuda for over forty years. ?We never considered making hats as a craft, we thought of it as a necessity. This material is there so utilise it instead of going out and buying new stuff.?

Ms Davis has always enjoyed crafts, but didn?t really bring it into her career until recently. Before working at the Coral Beach Club, she worked for thirty years as an overseas telephone operator.

?I used to do gardening at home, but not on a professional level,? Ms Davis said. ?I owe that part to my colleague Karen Watkins. She is fantastic and she has taught me the professional way.

?We do gardens at all the cottages. We don?t do the big work ? the guys do that, but we do little flower beds for the guests. We design the gardens and maintain them. I love that because you are communing with nature all the time. The other day I saw a double rainbow.?

In fact, Ms Davis said she is addicted to gardening, and when she gets home will often tend to her plants before she even goes into the house. ?It can be labour intensive at times, but it is one way of keeping fit,? she said. ?We do part time gardening, and sometimes I do arrangements for the guests. We do have a designer that does the flowers in-house.?

She said that doing crafts is a good way to relax after a hard day of communing with nature and watching rainbows. ?When I get an idea it is very exciting, and I will not eat and I can?t wait to get to it,? she said. ?But you might say I have fine tuned this craft by joining the Garden Club.?

Many of her ideas have been inspired by craft activities within the Garden Club, and she has also been encouraged to improve by suggestions from other Garden Club members, and also frequent club contests, such as a hat making contest from natural materials held in May.