Mother's Day Spotlight

Hi all!  Happy Belated Mother's Day!

Mother's Day is such a fun time for cards and when they are handmade it seems to add that much more love to the message.  As a mother myself, I have cherished (and saved) every one of the cards my children make and I smile at the crayon, scribbles, and lopsided images.  After all, where are you going to find a store bought card that has pumpkins on it in May.  Yet, by creating it themselves, my children can decorate it with all of my favorite things any time of the year.  As a survivor, the fact that I am still here to receive these precious works of art makes them masterpieces.

When it comes to Mother's Day, I am doubly blessed... I have the absolute best and most generous Mom ever and I am so spoiled :) (it helps to be the baby of the family even if I am are pushing 51).  AND I have the most wonderful Mom-in-law that any wife could ever hope to share.  The really cool part is that they are both so different and unique that I continue to learn from them both.  It also gives me an opportunity to make very individualized Mother's Day greetings inspired by their favorite things.  I hope my coloring has improved over the years :).

The first card with the fish I made for my Mom.  She lives at the ocean and just loves anything beach related. This card has tons of dimension which makes it seem as if the fish are actually floating by. I stamped the fish and seaweed, colored them with Copic markers and then cut them out.  On a small piece of card stock, I inked the blue background and stamped on the sea grass and sea horses.  By using pop dots behind the fish and sea weed when placed on the background piece, the shadow that it creates adds the depth. These pieces were then set on top of an embossed piece of cardstock that I inked before embossing to give the feeling of waves.  Everything was then mounted on yellow base cardstock and the sentiment added at the end.  She said it was my best card yet and she plans to shadow box frame it for her house...True Mother's love.

The second card I made for my Mom-in-law. She lives in the country and loves to garden and enjoy beautiful flowers.  She is also very active in her sorority whose colors are purple and yellow. For this card, I stamped the flower twice and colored them both with Copic markers. I cut out the first one completely being careful cutting around all the fine detail. The second one I only cut out random petals and leaf segments. I glued the random pieces on top of the full flower curling up the petal ends to give it texture.  I added gemstones to the center of the petals for shine and realism.  The focal flower was attached with pop dots to a swiss dot embossed piece of yellow cardstock that I antiqued around the edges and tied with matching twine. I rounded the corners and put it over craft paper card stock. She said she LOVED it and was going to show it to her Sorority sisters...high praise for sure.

Thanks to both of my Mother's for all that they do for us.  Have a great week.  Jeannette