Happy Mother’s Day

Today is Mother’s Day here in the States, and we’re lucky to be able to celebrate the occasion with Tracy’s family this year since everyone is vaccinated and well beyond the two weeks needed after the second shot. My nephew bought his first home during the pandemic and has been eagerly awaiting a time for the family to some see his new house. We gathered there late this afternoon for a celebration and a meal. It’s the first time we’ve all been together since Christmas of 2019. I fully intended to take a lot of photos, but it was so good to see and talk to everyone, I never took my phone out of my purse!

Before we left for Marc’s, Matt and his family came for a long visit. Then when we returned we had a long visit via Facebook with Sarah and her family. It was a very lovely Mother’s Day for this mom.

As I always do I made cards for each of the moms in Tracy’s extended family as well as for Betsy and Sarah. 

Here’s the card I made for Betsy:

I posted this one earlier for a challenge. I ended up being the randomly chosen winner of that challenge which netted me a $20 gift certificate! Later, after they went home, Betsy sent me a photo. She had removed the floral piece from the card and turned it into a magnet that’s now on her refrigerator!

And Sarah’s card which was also posted for a challenge earlier. Neither of these women frequent my blog so the cards are “new” to them. 

Tracy’s mom got the newest of all the cards. I broke my resolve about purchasing new stamps when I saw The Greetery’s Spring Market release. This card uses two new products, the “Always in Bloom” layered stencils and the “Bold Alphabet” dies. After ink blending the florals in the stencil, I added some details with Polychromos pencils and a few Raindrops from The Stamp Market.

I’m linking this card to two challenges: The Card Concept: Mother’s Day and Happy Little Stampers Stencils: Anything Goes. The Card Concept asks you to identify your style. This one most closely matches their definition for Clean and Simple. (No surprise there!) The inspiration was clearly the bouquet of flowers in the photograph. 

My two sisters-in-laws received these cards:

I broke out the last of my Simon Says Card Kit stamps for this card. I love the images in the “Spring Windows” set. I’ve had a lot of difficulty with my subscription for this kit since the December and almost didn’t get this one. I used a stamp from this set on Finn’s birthday card which I posted on Friday. I finally decided not to renew my subscription since almost all the stamp sets can be purchased separately. It was a good value most months, and I’ve been a long time subscriber, but this decision feels right for now. 

The last Mother’s Day card was also part of the Stock Your Stash post:

I’m not sure I’ve ever reposted cards before, but I decided it would be nice to have all the Mother’s Day cards in one spot.

Here’s the photo inspiration from The Card Concept.