Crafty Friday: Mother's Day Cards and Flowers

There was a last minute change in this week's Crafty Friday, mainly because I just remembered that this Sunday is Mother's Day, and I needed a gift for my mom. So what better way to thank my mother than by forcing my kids to make her a card. Just kidding. Handmade gifts from the grandkids are always a hit in our family (at least I hope they are). Regardless, the grandparents receive a lot of homespun creations from my kids. So for Mother's day, instead of spending $25 on the old standby of a card and flowers, we opted to make them.

Here's what we used:

-cardstock, cut and folded to resemble a card.
-glue
-scrapbook paper
-fabric scraps
-buttons
-paint
-a sewing machine to add decorative stitching
-watercolor paper
-ribbon and ric rac

I first let the kids paint on small scraps of watercolor paper that we would add to the cards when dry. *Just a little tip, plastic egg cartons work great for paint trays.*

While the paintings were drying, the kids went to work cutting fabric scraps and paper into shapes. Well, Audrie cut them into shapes, and Finn just cut lines into whatever piece of paper he could get his hands on. Audrie opted to glue her collage elements onto the paper.

Finn, with the help of Mom, decided to do something different. Sewing directly onto a card is one of my favorite ways to embellish it. We first sewed Finn's painting onto the card, and then he dictated where every other scrap went. To keep the thread from unravelling, I added a bit of glue to the seams' ends.

As a final element, Finn glued buttons onto the card. If you want a more permanent hold, you can hand-stitch the buttons to the paper, but we took the quick and easy route.
Add a little bit of text, and the results are a couple of cards that will make the mommas cry. (MiMi and Nonna, don't look yet!)

The second part to this gift combo is the flowers. This is a project Audrie came up with last Valentine's Day.

Here's what you need:-a paper or styrofoam egg carton
-paint
-pipe cleaners (preferably green, but we didn't have any, so we used black)
-buttons (back loop buttons work great for this project, but if you don't have any, a regular button will do)
-green fabric scraps cut into 3x4" rectangles approximately.

Step 1. Cut the egg carton into individual cups, like so:

Step 2: Paint the cups.

Step 3. While the cups are drying, take your rectangle squares and cut them into a football shape by folding the fabric in half, cutting half of the shape, and then unfolding them. The shape doesn't have to be perfect as demonstrated by my lovely sample:



Step 4. Pinch the shape in the middle and twist the pipe cleaner around it to secure the fabric.



Step 5. Poke holes through the bottom of the painted cups (Mom or Dad), and feed one end of the pipe cleaner through it.



Step 6. Feed the pipe cleaner through the back loop button. If you don't have any back loop buttons, then just tie a knot in the pipe cleaner to secure it to the flower.


Step 7. Feed the pipe cleaner back through the hole and twist it together to secure the stem. If you are using regular buttons, just add a dab of glue to the knot and and stick it on the flower.

Step 8. Admire your work and then repeat it for the rest of your bouquet. For an added touch, you can spray the flowers with a favorite scent. It might even fool Mom into thinking you bought them at the flower shop. Really.


TA-DA! A beautiful and vibrant bouquet of flowers for Mom!



And just to give you a little bit of Crafty Friday reality, here's our table, mid-crafting:

I don't even want to show what's strewn across the kitchen counters!

Happy crafting!

Nessa Dee

Mother's Day

Before I embark on my endeavor to post five whole days in a row, I had to say something about the Mother's Day gifts I received yesterday. Now, I'm not one to demand diamonds or flowers or any kind of fancy gift, really. For me, the old standby of a bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper, a candy bar and an "I appreciate what you do" will suffice. But, as I toted the kids off to church yesterday morning, I didn't even get a "Happy Mother's Day" from my husband, which could mean one of two things: 1. He was planning some kind of elaborate set up to surprise me with as I arrived home from church. Or 2. He genuinely forgot.
When I pulled into the driveway, I noticed on our front porch, the mop sitting in our kitchen trash can which was filled with soapy water. "OK," I thought,"He cleaned the house and mopped the floors with soapy trash can water. That's alright, it's the thought that counts." Then, he greeted me, mad, demanding the whereabouts of the mop bucket (on the back porch) and the video camera (also on the back porch-not my fault). With the realization of the location of the video camera, he ran to get it, pressed record, and led me into a house, which to my dismay was dirtier than when I left it that morning. I noticed the full laundry basket in the middle of the living room floor with a sign that read "I put the laundry all in one place for you!" On the counter, a bowl of nuked chip crumbs and cheese and an open, mostly eaten box of chocolates with the sign "Nachos and Chocolate!" On the table, a quarter of a dozen roses with a couple of water filters with the sign "Because I know how much you love water!" The counter housed every last spice we owned, a couple of cans of cream of chicken soup, a pot of boiling water on the stove, and this sign:

And lastly, my favorite, the card he "bought" from Wal-Mart which read:

**Just a bit of Jon and Ness history--Jonathan and I met at the beginning of our freshman year in college. After a year of randomly running into each other on campus, he finally asked for my number, only after almost calling me Valerie. I've never let him forget it. :)**

He explained as we drove to Jack in the Box for lunch that he had every intention to clean the house, run to the store to buy chocolate, flowers, and a Diet Dr. Pepper, and race to get my favorite rice/chicken/cilantro stuffed burrito, but ran out of time, so, he just went with the whole "messy house" thing.

I have to give him credit, he knows me well. I'll take humor any day over a pair of diamond earrings!

To all of the mother's, I hope your special day was as wonderful as mine!

ND