Mother’s Day Card – 4

This is my last card that I’m posting in this series. There is only one other special mom in my life and for her I made this Mother’s Day card and that is my mother-in-law. She is a very talented woman and has more energy than most people, even as a grandmother. We will be spending Mother’s Day with her and my father-in-law at our house this Sunday. Everyone is looking forward to it. I never have to stress about the food, which is a blessing for me, because she was a chef of her own restaurant and still has a passion for cooking and baking. I’ll be making an amazing looking cheese cake that I saw on FormerChef.com and my mother-in-law will be bringing a chocolate mousse cake.

The flower was painted by me, another watercolor idea from a Google search. I used orange card and added a strip of gold card for that bit of shine. The sticker border wasn’t long enough so I added a join. The trick is to cut it at an angle, which makes the join less visible. The lettering came from my first scrapbooking kit by Memories Direct.

I hope you and your kids are having fun making your own Mother’s Day cards. Have a great Mother’s Day on Sunday with your families! Oh, and don't forget to check out my poetry blog Consider the Lilies for some great Mother's Day poems. Come back tomorrow for a whole new series of fantastic photos!

Mother’s Day Card – 3

As you can see by the cards in my previous two posts, there is nothing complicated or difficult about these Mother’s Day cards. They are easy and fun to make and can be used simply as ideas for the kids. I made this card for my step-mom and mailed it the same day as my mom’s one. She’s a lovely lady and a good influence in my dad’s life. She’s the kind of woman that I’d happily spend more time with. Unfortunately, I live too far away.

Yesterday, I mentioned my childhood fascination for stickers. Stickers were to me like stamps are to a young stamp collector. I loved them and could look at them for hours (or almost, anyway). Once I was all grown up I thought that I’d have to set aside my childish love and I did for a time. Scrapbooking brought the passion back into my life. Why am I saying so much about stickers? Well, this card is decorated with a lot of them. The borders and letters are all stickers and, of course, the butterfly. They are great to work with, because I hardly needed scissors or glue with this card and, in my opinion, using them did not turn this card tacky as one might think. In fact, I’m very pleased with the result.

I used scrapbook paper for the stripes. It’s one sheet cut to size. The yellow stripe down the left-hand side of the card is the actual card itself. I left it showing through on purpose. The watercolor flowers were painted by me; however, it is not an original work. Just like yesterday’s one, I got the idea through a Google search.

Don’t forget to check out my Mother’s Day poems at Consider the Lilies. Here’s a list of the ones I’ve already posted, but I’ll post at least on more before Sunday.

• Gifted, Talented Woman
• To Be a Mother
• Mother
• Mother Acrostic

Mother’s Day Card – 2

This Mother’s Day card is already on its way to the U.S.A. and its recipient is my mom. There’s a good chance that it won’t arrive in time, because I only mailed it on Tuesday. That’s why I don’t mind if she sees what it’s going to look like ahead of time, that is if she looks at my blog post before Sunday.

This year I decided to add a small watercolor painting made by me instead of a recycled picture from a card. That is one of the best things about card making and scrapbooking, all the recycled pictures, papers and other bits and pieces. Nothing gets wasted. I used to throw little scraps of colored paper away, but not anymore. A small scrap can make a perfect background for a few letters, like this blue piece of paper with “MOM” on it. I like shiny stuff, so I added blue glitter.

Now back to the watercolor painting, although painted by me, it is not an original. I love being creative, but I’m not very good at drawing pictures from my head. In fact, I’m really bad at it. I do alright if there is a photograph or something to look at. In this case, I took the easiest option. I Googled “watercolor flowers” and found a long list of images and then printed a few, so this card and the next two cards that I’m going to post were painted after pictures from the internet.

I also added blue ribbon and a butterfly sticker. Since I was a kid, I’ve loved stickers, but I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow.

Mother’s Day Cards – 1

I live far away from my mom. Sometimes I send her a carefully chosen e-card for a special occasion, but usually I like to use the postal service so that she can have a real card to display on her mantel as a daily reminder that she is loved. This picture is a scanned image of her last year’s Mother’s Day card. I made it using a favorite photo from a card that I had received, different colored papers, cardboard, ribbon and other small pieces. It’s just the same as scrapbooking, a hobby that I can lose myself in for hours. In fact, the letters that spell “MOM” are from my first scrapbooking kit by Memories Direct. The link shows something similar to what I bought several years ago here in South Africa.

Mother's Day poems by me:

• Gifted, Talented Woman
• To Be a Mother

Amanda Sleeping – 4

This is a very recent photo of Amanda and my last one in this series. I used PicMonkey to edit this picture. They keep adding new features. One of them is Photo Corners and I used that application here. It gives my photo that scrapbooking look. In a sense, my photography blog is my digital scrapbook. All of PicMonkey’s features are free at the moment, so now is a great time to give PicMonkey a try. I’m very happy with my font in Picasa 3 for this blog and so I used theirs, although PicMonkey has really cool font applications to choose from.

Here is the image cropped with no photo editing. She looks like a sleeping angel. Which of these two images is your favorite? The question: to edit or not to edit. I’d love to hear from you. Also, make sure you check out my parenting blog at Amanda’s Books and More where you’ll find lots of fun things to read and be inspired.

Simplicity – 10

Do your kids like to read comic books? You can create their own personalized comic books by using photos that tell a story about their lives and apply the Comic Book photo editing tool in Picasa 3 to your images. You can add Text to your images as well. Then print the pictures and scrapbook them or bind them together another way. This would make a great birthday gift idea too.

Here’s how I applied the Comic Book editing tool on this image. I clicked on Comic Book, which opens up to show three slide-bars. The slide-bars are for adjusting Color Brush, Dot Density and Dot Fade. I adjusted all three until I was happy with my result. Now, let's start making some memories!