Home Sweet Home, A Scrapbook Layout

Greetings friends! Today I have a bittersweet scrapbook layout to share with you.

While I'm all for young people growing up and taking on adult responsibilities, it's hard on the heart when not only do they grow up, but they grow their wings and fly away!

My son Tayo and his girlfriend Ellie recently moved into their first apartment. And while I'm so proud of them for having done it all on their own, I'm also very sad to have my second and last child leave home.

So what does a crafty mom do? Make a scrapbook page to commemorate the occasion!

To make this layout, I started with two sheets of Pinkfresh Studio's Happiness Blooms paper. I cut the floral element out of one sheet and used the other sheet for the background.

I traced an old Bazzill pink card stock heart that had scalloped edges onto the 'B' side of Jen Hadfields Picnic Basket paper, cut it out and then cut a smaller heart from white Bazzill card stock and mounted it on top of the Picnic Basket paper. 

The placement of the heart was dependent on the large floral element that I had cut from the Happiness Blooms paper. I aligned the cut floral element directly over the florals on the background paper and slide the heart between them.  When I did that, the right edge hung over the background so I cut that portion off. Once I figured out this main placement, I glued the two heart pieces together and then glued them to the background.

I mounted my photo onto white Bazzill card stock, and glued that to a piece of Pebbles Kid at Heart paper from the 6x8 paper pad. I topped the photo with the 'Home Sweet Home' chipboard from the Paige Evans Bungalow Lane Collection and embellished it with the key sticker from Jen Hadfields Live and Let Grow Collection.

I created a journaling box, which I will fill in later, by cutting a square shape from the B side of Jen Hadfields Bouquet paper, then cut a window out of that and embellished it with the gold butterfly from the same sticker pack as the key sticker above.

The 'We Grow Together' and the 'Happy Day' die cuts are from Jen Hadfields Live and Let Grow ephemera pack.

A date stamped with the Roller Date Stamp from Ali Edwards finishes the page!

What life event has tugged at your heart lately? It's a great idea to document these kinds of events, even if you just write something down in a keepsake journal. Your future self will be so glad you did.

Thanks for looking and see you again next month!

Flattening the Curve, Day 53

Dear friends. Today is the fifty-third day of my mandatory leave from my government work site due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and it is Mother's Day here in the United States.

I'm guessing like you, my Mother's Day has been filled with mixed emotions due to the situation with the coronavirus pandemic.

On the one hand my son Tayo, who lives here at home with his dad and I, made me a tray of chocolate brownies and a funny card.

On the other hand, because my daughter Audrey lives across town, we are unable to spend the day together. But we did talk on the telephone, and that was good.

My mother Emily lives in a nursing home in my neighborhood and the only way I could see her today was to visit her through her window. Not an ideal situation.

But I did bring a variety of annuals to plant in the flower box right outside her window. Jim helped me haul in a large bag of potting soil with the wheel barrow and we dug the old dirt out of the box and added in the new dirt. As we planted the flowers into the box, I showed them to my mom and announced the names of each flower through the open window. It brought her a little bit of joy. She waved at us and I could see in her eyes that she was happy to see us. She can't speak anymore...

I also gave her a lovely bouquet of pink orchids and pink oriental lilies - the fragrant lilies. And, of course, a greeting card. My sister Joyce and her husband sent our mother a bouquet. I saw it sitting on my mother's dresser but I couldn't see what the flower varieties were, but it was a very pretty arrangement.

It's days like this that the fact of the pandemic hits me the hardest. There is nothing that can be done except wait it out and be grateful that we are not ill and that we have food, shelter and some activities to keep us busy while we flatten the pandemic curve.

Thank you for reading and Happy Mother's Day.

 

Flattening the Curve, Day 28

Well friends today is my twenty-eighth day of quarantine from my work site due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and I experienced what perhaps by now many of you have already experienced.

Today is our daughter Audrey's birthday and because of the strict social distancing measures in place, also due to coronavirus, we were unable to celebrate in our usual custom of sharing a nice dinner and a celebratory cake together.

Instead, Jim and I visited Audrey at her home and placed her gifts on her front porch. We then walked out to the sidewalk and called her to let her know we were there. As Audrey opened the door to come outside we held up the family 'Happy Birthday' banner, torn, tattered and taped from years of use, and greeted her with big smiles and a happy birthday salutation.

In truth as we waited for Audrey to appear, I held back tears. I had a sudden moment of overwhelm as I stood next to Jim, anxiously waiting to see our daughter, and thinking about how crappy it must feel for a young person to not have a proper celebration surrounded by friends and family.

But those thoughts and feelings passed as Audrey came out, dressed for her special day with her hair nicely styled. She was upbeat and said despite the situation that she was having a good day. She told us about how her friends had visited her earlier in the day (adhering to social distancing of course), bringing gifts, and that her step-sister Kaede had sent birthday greetings. And she said that tonight she will be watching a movie with friends via Skype.

It was so good to see Audrey and I felt much better after hearing about how her big day was shaping up.

Happy Birthday Audrey - I love you!

A Mother's Day Greeting Card And Name Banner

Since tomorrow is Mother's Day here in the U.S. I would like to show you a greeting card and name banner that I made for my mom.  Last Saturday was National Scrapbook Day, and I wrote here on the blog about my recent memory keeping projects, and referenced some of the products I've been working with lately.  Today, I'd like to show you how I used more of the Studio Calico Project Life kit 'Lisse Street', along with some of the patterned paper that I ordered as an add on.  I also worked with a few of the items from the Park Ave scrapbook kit, and added a sheet of Bazzill yellow-gold cardstock to the mix. 

The finished size of the card (below) is 5x5 inches.  After cutting the yellow-gold cardstock to 5 inches wide and 10 inches long, I used a scoring blade in a paper cutter to score it in the middle of the length to create the base of the card.  Then, I cut a piece of white cardstock just a bit smaller for the front, and another for the inside, then embellished the front with transparencies, letter stickers and chipboard.  

For the banner, I cut one 3"x4" rectangle for each letter from the striped paper, then cut the flower patterned paper just a bit smaller so that it would fit inside the striped paper, notching them at the bottom to give them that 'banner' look. Then I punched holes in the corner of each one and strung them using baker's twine.

My mother now lives in a nursing home very close to us, and I'll be bringing these gifts to her tomorrow.  I made the banner to hang on the door of her room; several of the other residents have cute things on their doors and I thought it would be nice for my mom to have something that would add to the cheeriness in the hallway, and maybe lift her spirits, as well.

I've written a little bit about my mom in the past - she not only has Alzheimer's but has also struggled with illness and a serious injury in the past few months.  Things are looking up lately, and she's doing much better, although being 91 (almost 92!) is hard enough as it is.  In the quiet hours of the morning, I'm going to write a sentiment inside the card, before going to visit my mom tomorrow.  Happy Mother's Day!

Things My Mother Taught Me

Soon my mother Emily will be 91 years old. Obviously she knows some things about being a mom.

The biggest thing that stays with me is seeing how she was always there for someone, no matter what. She often says "We are family" and is always ready and willing to help out a family member.  She taught me that sticking by someone, even if you don't always agree, is what helps keep a family strong.

Hard work was never a source of complaint to my mother. She just knows how to dig in and get something done, and to keep at it. Having grown up on a farm in Wisconsin set the stage for a lifetime of work. After she left the farm, she moved to Chicago and worked in an airplane factory during World War II, became a stay at home mom, and then worked at various retail shops until her retirement. For her, work was just another necessary part of life.    

And lastly, my mom learned to sew at an early age, and became a gardener much later in life. She taught me to sew when I was a teenager and to see the value in time well spent on something you love to do.

Thanks Mom, for showing me the way. And Happy Mother's Day!

On Motherhood

Hello Sweet Babies

"Don't stand unmoving outside the door of a crying baby whose only desire is to touch you. Go to your baby, go to your baby a million times."  - Peggy O'Mara

The roots of my mothering began in the mountains of Colorado over twenty years ago. It was then that I discovered Peggy O'Mara and her magazine, Mothering. The challenges before me, about how to birth and raise babies, were presented there; each editorial, each article, gave insight into and argued for natural childbirth, breastfeeding, the family bed, and attachment parenting.

The editorial page, A Quiet Place, focused on current information, much of it scientific and cross-cultural, and gave me good reasons to choose to parent in this way. I will never look back with regret at those choices. They stand the test of time; they are grounded in love, compassion and a desire for a harmonious family relationship. I miss the early days of our family, and so, on this Mother's Day, I created the scrapbook layout above to commemorate days gone by...

My babies are grown now, one a young adult and the other a teen. The challenges of parenting are as ever-present as those first days, of course, but what has changed is that I have learned to rely on my own inner voice, the voice that Peggy O'Mara assured me was there from the very beginning. Sure, sometimes I stumble, or even fall, but the bedrock of my parenting style was laid long ago and I have a solid foundation on which to land. And with these two by my side, I know that we can weather whatever challenges we may face as a family.