celebrating mom

What do you give the woman who has everything? Something handmade from the heart, of course! Well, I guess that my Mom doesn't have everything, but after years of giving her quilting supplies, I needed to change things up for Mother's Day. 

My Mom is special. As I'm sure yours is. But, this year, my family has come to rely on her like we never have before. With three of us working, and only two cars, she has become indespensable to us as a taxi. She has become a confidant to our moody teens. As always, she is our personal tailor. I often come home to find a few BJ's staples on my kitchen counter. The list of what she does goes on and on. Generous is the word that describes her best. She is precious to all of us!

Here is the gift I'll be giving her this Mother's Day. 

I am in love with how it turned out! I'm not crazy about my handwriting, so I considered using some of my favorite fonts. But in the end, I wanted this project to be very personal, and so I featured our handwriting throughout the project. 

I didn't have just the right patterned paper, so I decided to stamp my own! Mom's favorite color is yellow, so it was an easy choice for this project. 

I highlighted important words by using pink marker on Whisper White card stock to remind Mom of what she means to us. 

Both of our girls came up with a list of words that describe their Gram. I plugged them into an online word search generator, and then stamped the grid and highlighted the words. 

Please don't ask me how long it took me to come up with a method for stamping a neat grid! And don't ask me how many times I had to crumple up my work and start over! It's totally embarrassing. I WILL tell you how I did it! Someone should take advantage of my hopeless mistakes. ; ) With a pencil, I lightly drew lines, horizontally and vertically, 1/4" apart, to create boxes for each letter. Ten letters fit vertically on my paper, so the grid is 10 letters by 10 letters. Then I stamped the letters in the boxes. In hindsight, it seems logical, but you wouldn't believe how many ways I tried, and failed. 

I think that this Mother's Day is going to be pretty wonderful for my Mom. As a quilter, she really appreciates a handmade gift. She's why I'm so crafty! 

Happy Mother's Day, and happy  stamping!

the ocean is calling

It's 26 degrees. It's March 26th. Strange, no? It's officially spring! But my backyard is covered in snow and ice. We try go south for February break, but that didn't happen this year. I have been dealing with snow since December. December through March with nothing but snow, and ice, and cold, and wind. Four very, extremely, agonizingly slow months.

I dreamed of the ocean last night. Of sandy shores, seagulls, surf, salty air, and sunshine. Sunshine! Imagine that! And I dreamed in color, because I couldn't wait to get to my craft table and make a card with yellows and blues and greens. And so I did. I even used a tropical looking flower as the focal point.

Could someone please send me a one way ticket to Florida? I'd like to set my eyes upon this view for real. Paper versions don't smell salty. And they don't radiate sunshine. I need some of that. Don't you?

Happy stamping!

Aqua and orange

Things have been busy around here! My youngest daughter was cast in the musical Grease as Patty, the perky cheerleader and this past weekend was show time! And before that was tech week. I've been living out of my car (rehearsals were forty minutes away, and with gas as expensive as it is, I didn't want to drive back and forth every night), so card crafting took a back burner. 

But now I'm back! My new favorite color combination? Aqua and orange! In this case, Pool Party and Calypso Coral. With some Riding Hood Red and Certainly Celery to boot. I had fun playing with sponging color using masks and negative space. I sponged the background first, and then did the butterflies. 

I clear embossed the swirls before adding the color to lend a sense of movement and whimsy. 

Happy stamping!