We lost dad last year - he finally gave up in May - Mother's Day in fact - 2017. He took a lot of mamma with him, as she has deteriorated rapidly since. I miss him terribly. Mamma's under my sister's care now. She's in a full-time Alzheimers center, and is pretty much wheelchair bound, barely having enough strength in her legs to stand. She took several falls in a cupla months, and i think there's some permanent damage we've not been told about. She's lost weight - and although she remembered me when we went in May for Mother's Day - she didn't remember Dan. This time, going for her Birthday, she remembered Dan and it took a bit till she remembered me. Both Trips were made bearing gifts, which is a challenge for someone who is in an institution...so I am putting things on the wall.
So ima going to show off some of the stuff I've done recently. For Mother's Day I made for mamma a 12X12 paperscape under glass.... the Floral Heart Paper Sculpture pattern from Dreaming Tree. All done in shinny and metallic papers, with my first attempt at vinyl overlaying the glass. . It has pride of placement on the wall by the foot of her bed.
For her Birthday I decided on Orchids, as she had soooo loved her garden, and especially her orchids. I made my own version of the Orchid Plant from Lia Griffith. This is done in 70# Text weight metallics and stands a bit over 2ft tall. This is attached to the wall above her bed. She was thrilled, and sat gazing at it while we were talking....
I think for Christmas i'll do something for her window - maybe a set of "stained glass" nativity....
I'm still making cards for 2 charities a month - Ronald McDonald House and Cards for a Cause. I've have even stepped up and been the Hostess twice for Cause for a Cause, Once for the Veterans Hospital in Miami, and the other for Martha's House in Okeechobee.
In April this year I finally got to the Scrapbook Expo in Orlando. I took a handful of classes, a couple each in Watercoloring with Stamps (Art Impressions) and coloring with Alcohol Markers. And I took a couple of Heartfelt Creations classes, learning a bit more about building 3D Cards. I thoroughly enjoyed all, but the watercoloring with stamps was the one that stuck the most, and I've been doing all kinds of cards using those techniques...
In fact - the Arbor card was selected and highlighted as one of the "Favorites of the Week" at SplitCoastStampers.com.
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And kinda lastly on my tour of "cool stuff" I've kept busy with - I had created a special card for my HEA for our Anniversary. Again using a pattern from DreamingTree, this time the King of the Castle Cascade Card, but in a color scheme liked better....that of white and champagne and gold, with touches of Red.
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So keeping an eye on Mom - and working with crafty stuff is how i keep busy when not at my full time job...and it's keeping me all happy. We're looking towards the future - I'm on the downhill slide towards retirement - and Dan's just a year away from cresting that peak himself. We're talking a lot about what to do in retirement - and where to live...
I'm pretty convinced I'm going to find a way to continue with my crafty stuff - maybe teaching classes. My heart's desire would be to be picked up by Art Impressions, or Heartfelt Creations, or someone like that and be able to teach classes for them...but I'm nowhere near ready for that yet! My artwork is passable...but I'm not ready for prime-time!
