All,

I am working on designing arms for my wife, and since everybody here was so helpful with my design process I thought I would elicit your help again. My wife’s name is MaryAnne and her maiden name is Bedtke. I have a few general ideas to get the ball rolling.

Background:

My wife grew up on a diary farm in the bluffs of the Mississippi River valley in southeast Minnesota. Her ancestry is Belgian/German/Italian. She is a high agriculture and math teacher by education, but is currently a stay-at-home mom. She was very active in FFA as a student and as an ag teacher was an FFA Advisor. She is devout Catholic wife and mother. She enjoys gardening, cooking, photography, and crafting.

Qualities I would say describe her are: loyal, faithful, mysterious, fun, hard working, and pure.

Tinctures:
Her favorite color is purple, so I am proposing purpure for the field. For the metal, gold.

Design/Charges:
My wife’s confirmation patron is St. Joan of Arc, so the idea occurred to me to do something that alludes to Joan of Arc’s coat of arms, and since part of her first name is Mary I thought about keeping the fleur de lys from Joan or Arc’s coat of arms, but I am unsure of what to replace the sword and crown with.

An owl of some sort, perhaps a Northern Saw Whet Owl proper. Not sure about posture. The owl is the symbol of the FFA Advisor and so I would like it in the coat of arms somewhere, the crest seeming the most logical.  But since I envision her arms displayed either on a lozenge or impaled with my arms maybe her crest won’t be depicted that often so maybe the owl should be a central element on the shield.

That is what I have for thoughts at this point. Any suggestions people have would be much appreciated.

All the best,
Travis

On the owl, browsing some FFA related images leads me to believe that maybe we are looking at something more like a great horned owl.

And her favorite flower is the sunflower.

Well here’s some options to noodle on while you wait for everyone else to chime in.

The first one takes into account all the charges you mentioned:

“Per chevron, Or and Purpure, two Owls close respectant purpure and a sunflower Or.”

(continued in next post for attachment size limitation…)

The second would have the owl moved to the crest as suggested and alludes to your Joan of Arc reference…

“Purpure, a bend Or semy-de-lis purpure between two sunflowers Or.”