These are my new favorite flowers to make and they are sooo easy! This is actually a sneak peek of my Mom’s Mother’s Day gift this year.
I’m actually very happy with how it turned out and can’t wait to give it to her today.
It’s really a representation of her “real” gift. You see, last year my sister came up with a fantastic idea of taking my Mom to Sturbridge Village for Mother’s Day. So we gave her a picture of the two of us from my wedding and told her the picture would be replaced with a picture from our overnight trip to Sturbridge Village in September. We picked September because my Mom used to go to Sturbridge and/or Deerfield with my Dad in the fall because they like the foliage.
It’s also her birthday in September so she gets to pick her birthday presents out from each of us while we’re on the trip. Two birds with one stone. And the best part… I can’t even tell you how happy it made my Mom. She was on cloud nine I think for at least a week after we got home.
It was rather cute, too, as we were leaving she asked, “So are we going to do this again next year?” Absolutely Mom!
So here is a shadow box I made using pictures from last year to repersent our fall 2010 trip, which will be todays Mother’s Day gift (Warning: the supplies I used on this project were not Stampin’ Up — Gasp! — We don’t currently have any black and white paper and my Mom has a toile room that I was trying to coordinate with) You can click on the image to see it larger:
I’m so glad my Mom and I get along so well. I tell you it wasn’t always that way! There were a few years in college where I thought we may never speak again. But I’m very fortunate since I was six years younger than my sister (pictured in the blue shirt) and nine years younger than my older brother (his wife is pictured in the bottom right photo on the right next to my beautiful niece) I spent a lot of time with my Mom as a kid.
She used to take me antique shopping with her (always telling me to keep my hands in my pocket and don’t touch anything!), she was always my “editor” for my term papers in high school and college and she is my biggest cheerleader (she used to always tell me I could do anything I want to do if I wanted to do it badly enough and because it was from her I believed it!).
I actually got my love for writing, in a way, from her. When we would take those trips to the antique stores I eventually found the bookshelvs and Mom OK’d my looking through (and picking up) the books. On one of those first ventures through the bookshelves I found this:
I was attracted most by the flower printed cover and foil leaf edging, but inside were poems from all the great authors including Edgar Allan Poe, my favorite at the time.
I then fell in love with the inscription: “Lily, From Flick Xmas 1895.” I now have probably hundreds of small little poem books, but I think this is still one of my oldest and will always be my favorite because it became a tradition for Mom and me to look for old poem books on every trip from then on out. She even will pick one up for me sometimes when she finds one on her own.
I’m so grateful I have such a great relationship with my Mom. I know I’m probably the cause of many of the gray hairs on her head (although I think my sister caused a lot more than me! lol), but she will always be the most beautiful woman in the world to me.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!