Mother's Day

This post is dedicated to my lovely mum, who passed away last year, aged 85

It is thanks to my mum that I have a love of handmade things. She taught me how to knit when I was 8 and how to sew when I was 11. She encouraged me in all things creative and was my biggest fan :) My mum was an amazing lady who was very creative and could turn her hand to just about anything. She could write verse, sew, knit, paint and in later years, taught ceramics.  I have a photo of my 3 older siblings when they were young and everything they are wearing in the photo was made by mum...except the shoes!! I bet she's spending her time in spirit being as creative as ever :) She was a lovely lady...we all miss her very much......

This week at Michelle Perkett Studio the theme for challenge #28 is Mother's Day. I wasn't really looking forward to doing a DT project for this challenge. I think when we lose someone near and dear to us, the "special" days...birthdays, Christmas, etc... are difficult for the first few years. Mother's Day will be a bit weird without my lovely mum this year.

After contemplating what to make for the challenge, I decided to make something for my daughter, from her 3 beautiful kidlets :)  This is what I came  up with:

 This is a little book measuring 6 1/2" square. The caption across the top of the front cover says: Children are the flowers in life's garden..... I printed the caption onto the DP before adhering to the book.

The first double page inside has a verse that my mum wrote many years ago, called In My Garden and a greeting from the children to their mum:

This is followed by a double page from each child, with a photo and a drawing done by them:

When I had my grandbabies overnight last week, I asked them to draw a picture for their mum and gave them a piece of CS with a 5" square drawn in pencil. They were asked to draw within the lines so I could mat the drawing in the book :) Jake is 10, Kate 5 and Amy 4. They did a great job!!

The covers for the book have been made from chipboard and painted black. The inside pages are heavy weight black CS. The book was bound using my Bind-it-All machine. The DP is from the Kaiser 6" paper pad called La-Di-Da, with the exception of Jake's pages which are from a digi paper kit.

The image I chose for the front is from Michelle Perkett Studio. She is called Mary, Mary and is available from Michelle's Etsy shop HERE. I think this is the perfect image to go with the In My Garden theme of the book. She has been coloured with Copics, highlighted with glitter pens, cut out and popped up on foam dots. The flower borders are from two 3D border stickers.

With hindsight, it would have been much smarter to photo the book on a light coloured background instead of black...would be much easier to see!!!

I thought I'd include the verse mum wrote here, for you to read...it's my favourite out of all the ones she penned...........

                                                In My Garden

                                                 In my garden

                                                 I saw the sunshine

                                                 in my children's eyes,

                                                 picked the flowers

                                                 of their smiles,

                                                 watched the rain

                                                 of falling tears

                                                 help them blossom

                                                 through the years.

Wishing you a Mother's Day filled with love and laughter.....................