Happy Mother's Day

Hello,

And Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.  I'm taking advantage of a few free moments before we head out to two (overlapping) soccer games to write this post.

It's been a busy few weeks.  Work has been crazy busy, spring gets hectic with three kids on separate travel soccer teams and then the beginning of all of the extra end of the school year activities.  So, there hasn't been much opportunity to steal moments to get into my craft area.

I did manage to grab some time to make some Mother's Day Cards.  That was a necessity - since I had to have them to send to my mother and step-mother! :)  Since I also needed cards for the swap at my monthly card club I used my limited crafting time to do double duty.  The ladies at card club received these Mother's Day Cards in the swap!

The card base is made from Neenah Solar White 110 lb card stock.  The colored layer is Melon Mambo card stock from StampinUp! The ribbon and ink is also StampinUp! Melon Mambo.  The flower stamps are from the StampinUp! Punch Potpourri (Hostess) set.  The sentiment is from the Gina K Designs retired set Kindred Greetings for Her.  The three flowers were popped up with and the black centers were created with black Enamel Accents.

I've had a very lovely day so far.  The weather is sunny, pleasantly warm and its a beautiful day!  I got up and went to my Yoga class this morning - my treat to me was not skipping a class that helps me to feel so energized and calm.  When I got home my husband and daughter were just getting back from the store - my daughter wanted to buy me flowers!  When I stepped in the house, I could smell brownies - not an uncommon occurrence since my second son loves to bake.  But, the pleasant surprise was that they were special gluten-free brownies for me!  It's been so long since I had brownies.  What a great surprise.

Then the three kids (under the supervision of my husband) made me breakfast.  It was a multi-course breakfast.  It started with fruit salad, continued with scrambled eggs and bacon and concluded with a special dessert of a warm brownie with a dollop of whipped cream, some chocolate sauce and garnished with some mini chocolate chips.  So yummy and such a treat!

We'll be stopping for dinner on the way home from this afternoon's soccer double header.

I hope all the rest of you mothers have a wonderful Mother's Day!

Thanks for visiting.  I hope you can come back soon!

Mother's Day Cards - & A Happy Recipient

Hi There,

It's been super crazy lately and I never got a chance to post the Mother's Day cards that I made.

I had several that I needed - my mom, my grandmother, my sister, my step-mother,  our day care provider who has taken care of all of my three kids for the last 16 years!  I also had a co-worker ask to buy some Mother's Day cards.  So, I made two basic styles of cards.

For this card I used Melanie Muenchinger's A Year of Flowers 2 stamp set from Gina K Designs.  The sentiment is from Gina K Designs, Kindred Greetings for Her.

The card stock is SU Gumball Green and Wisteria Wonder for the bases, black for the layer and Neenah White 80lb layering cardstock for the image layer.  The inks are SU Gumball Green, Rose Red, Daffodil Delight and Gina K's new Black Onyx Color Companions Ink.  The ribbon was some scraps that I had laying around.

These were quick, easy cards.  I really like the sketchy style of Melanie's set.  It coordinates with so many of her other sets.  I am a real fan of Melanie's stamp sets - I think I have almost all of them!

I didn't want to send the exact same card to everyone that I needed to give a card to, so there had to be another style.  This time I chose Rebecca Oehlers' Bold Blooms set, which is also by Gina K Designs.  

I made eight of these cards - two of each color!  The colors I used are Pretty in Pink, Wisteria Wonder, Tangerine Tango and So Saffron.  The card bases are Neenah Solar White 110lb base weight card stock.  The ribbon was in my "stash" so I'm not quite sure where it was from! 

The blossom, leaves and sentiment were all stamped in Versamark ink and then embossed with white embossing powder.  Since the flowers were already colored due to the colored card stock I could have stopped there.  But, I wanted to make the flowers pop a bit more.  So, I took the matching Stampin Up Marker and just traced the outline of the white embossing on each of the flower petals.  Yes, it was a little time consuming, but it didn't have to be too exact!*  I just think it made the flowers have more dimension.

*As an engineer, sometimes its actually hard to let things be "not too exact"!   :)

I wrote out and mailed the cards that I needed to send and then brought the rest in to work for Lily to choose from.  I wanted her to be able to have some choices!

She chose one of each style.  One was for her grand-daughters to give to their mother.  The other one made her cry - she said it reminded her of her own mother.  

This is a picture of Lily's daughter-in-law with the card she received from her daughters.  It's not often that I get to see the recipients of my cards, so this was nice!  I'm glad she liked it!

So, one of the benefits of it being such a crazy week last week is that I got to post the Happy Recipient photo that Lily sent to me!

And although it's late, I hope you all had a Happy Mother's Day.  See you soon!