Home From "Mother's Day Tour"

My Mom (left) and her best friend of 55 years Lil

Mother's Day 2011

Mom and I got home last night after our Mother's Day Tour. We had a wonderful time! Starting from Branson we drove to Sioux City, Iowa, with a side trip to our favorite antique mall north of St. Joseph, MO. While in Sioux City we stayed with my brother and his wife where we always have a great time. My sister lives in the area, too, so we spent time with her and her fiance having lunch at the legendary Green Gables. It has been on the same corner since before I was born. Let me just say that was a looooong time ago. Best matzo ball soup anywhere!

Mother's Day was a large family gathering for brunch at my brother's. Oh, so much great food, games and conversation.  It was fun to watch Mom's grown-up grandsons playing with the young great-grandsons and great-grandaughter. My son got a bunch of us playing Phase 10, which was a blast, as always.

From Sioux City we headed across Iowa with a stop in Woodbine, Mom's hometown, and a visit with her cousins. Then to Newton, home of Maytag, where my Uncle George had worked for over 40 years. George passed on last year, but we spent time with my aunt and cousins. We drove over to Cedar Rapids with a stop at Little Amana (didn't have time to go up to Homestead and the other colonies) where I was able to get some wine and other favorites of the Amana Colonies.  In Cedar Rapids are my Uncle and Aunt, ages 90 and 89, who are doing well and still self-sufficient.  I stopped at Hy-Vee and loaded up on Chinese food and salads from the deli there --- great stuff! So we had a great lunch and conversation. They love to look at my photos so I took out the laptop for a slideshow.

We had wonderful weather, except for the wind, almost all week.  Coming home yesterday I drove through a nightmare of a thunderstorm south of Des Moines.  It lasted about 30 minutes then the skies parted and we were in the clear for the rest of the drive home.

Now that I am home I have lots of catching up to do, especially with my favorite blogs! I'll get back in the groove soon! Thanks for stopping by and letting me share my special Mother's Day trip with you.

Mother's Day Card for My Mom

This is just a quick note to show the card I made for my mom. She won't be looking at my blog for the next couple of days so it is safe to post it. I get so tickled at Mom and her laptop. She will soon be 79 years old and it wasn't too many years ago that her laptop was only good for playing Solitaire in bed.  Now she is on the internet first thing in the morning, often before she gets dressed.  So when I saw this image by Mo Manning I knew just what to do with it!

The dp is from a Basic Grey scrapbook collection. The sentiment is computer generated.

I colored the image with Copics. The color scheme was chosen because it is one of Mom's favorites. Her laptop isn't red, but she often sets it on fire with her internet research!

Inside is a sentiment I made up (a rarity). The computer and stack of books is from the Print Shop 2.0 application. When she is not on the computer she is reading.. and reading.. and reading!

I am proud of my mom for thousands of reasons, especially that she keeps her mind active and is involved in important issues facing our country. As a volunteer for the Branson Tea Party Patriots HQ she talks to many people nearly everyday as well as prepares informational materials pertaining to the issues and candidates.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! I love you!

And Happy Mother's Day to all Moms, Step-Moms, Grandmoms, and Moms-in-law out there!

Bah! Humbug! Challenge --- Pleats and Ruffles

We can always count on the creative ladies at Bah! Humbug! to give us interesting challenges. That will make for a wide variety of cards to send out when the holidays come around again, that's for sure! This week the challenge calls for pleats and ruffles.  To understand the source of this inspiration you will just have to pay a visit to the challenge for all the deets! T'is a Lofty inspiration, this one! But first, let me show you what I came up with.

A couple of weeks ago Bah! Humbug! had a challenge calling for Christmas stockings, but I wasn't able to participate in that one.  I was going to recycle this beautiful card with the three stockings hanging from the mantle.  So when this challenge came up I wanted to use this Mo Manning image with the pretty ruffled robe. I added a simple row of ruffled lace and ribbon around the top, much like the lace in the illustrated stockings, to make a quick and simple card. 

The image is colored with Copics. I like that so many non-traditional colors are now used for Christmas cards. I'm all for variety!

Thank you for stopping by! Be sure to hop over to Bah! Humbug! and see what is new in the "Hall". Jump in with your own projects, too. Before you know it you'll have a pile of cards ready for the holidays!

Mo's DP2 Challenge #80 --- Pink and Girlie!

The challenge at Mo Manning's DP2 this week is "Pink and Girlie".  Mo has so many adorable little girl images and coloring them in pink comes so naturally to me, I guess because pink was my favorite color when I was a little girl.  For my card I used the image "Cupcake Princess Violet", one of Mo's latest creations that can be found here.

I used only one sheet of dp, a double-sided selection from the new Susan Winget stack at K & Company. There are so many gorgeous sheets in this collection.  The image is cut with the Nesties circle die and is placed on a pink vellum die cut using the new Beaded Circles Nesties.  The large flower made up of a pink silk daisy, a paper flower, and a small flower cut from the dp.  I punched three more small flowers from the dp and added my favorite leaves by MS punch.  The border punch is also a new MS punch around and is so pretty!

The image is colored with Copics.  This just might be a birthday card for my mom later this month. As I mentioned, I loved pink as a little girl, especially in frilly dresses.  I also had long blonde hair and loved to decorate cupcakes.

The inside is finished and ready for a hand written note or a stamped sentiment.  There is a piece of the pink vellum over the dp along with the border punch and a strip of the dp at the top.

Thank you for stopping by today. It is the beginning of a glorious week leading up to Mother's Day and I have plans to spend some travel plans with my mom over the weekend.  We've always loved our road trips. 

Be sure to travel over to the DP2 Challenge to seem the amazing pink projects by the DT.