Rhubarb Time

I love this photo. It's taken in my vegetable garden. When my husband and I moved to this house, mom dug up one of her rhubarb plants and gave it to us.

Since mom died, most days I feel like sitting in my chair and crying all day. I'm trying to find healthy ways of dealing with her death and I'm looking for comfort where I can find it. A couple days ago I was thinking of how good mom's rhubarb pie was. I remembered how she left her gardening shoes at our house so they'd be available for her whenever she visited. Then I got the idea of taking her shoes and posing them in places on our property where she comes to mind. So instead of crying all day, I spent a couple of hours and several rolls of film taking photos.

Flower Pounding

I wanted to preserve some of the flowers from my mom's funeral. I wasn't sure what I'd ever do with flowers that were dried, so I thought of doing flower pounding. I used my Wizard die cut machine to do the "flower pounding".

Mother's Day

Self-portrait

I really had fun doing this. It's a technique in Randi Feuerhelm-Watts' Inspiration and Techniques deck. What's great about this stencil portrait is that I have no WRINKLES or AGE SPOTS !! Here's how I did it.

I scanned a photo of myself into my computer and then used Photoshop Elements to invert the image, which made my face a gray color. I printed the image to a 5" size and then traced around the eyes, mouth, eyeglasses, smile lines, nose and some wisps of my hair. The purpose of the inverting is to make it easier to do the tracing I guess because it flattens your face. You really don't have to do the scanning and inverting. Just enlarge a photo and print and then trace. All the inverting does is remove distractions.

Then I used a very sharp exacto knife to remove the lines I traced. Randi says to lay the stencil on plain paper and lightly sponge paint over the stencil. I tried that but what worked better was to use cardstock and a small stencil brush. I also used a repositionable adhesive to hold the stencil while I was doing the stenciling.

House Project

This is the house I'm working on that I mentioned in a previous posting. It's 10-1/2" tall to the peak of the roof, and the side where the windows are is 8-1/2" wide. I found this at a 2nd hand store and immediately saw it's possibilities in being a piece to honor my mom. As you can see, there are 2 long slots; two books go there. There are identical slots on the other end of the house. I don't have much worked out on the house yet - it's slow going.

It didn't take much time to do what you see above. My mom is holding my sister Carolyn. The letters spelling "mom" are 3D. The other end of the house will be for a picture of me with mom. That has slowed me down, because as I go through photos I get too emotional and then can't function. Should I use the photo of mom and me standing next to each other after returning to the house from my college graduation? Or how about the photo of mom standing beside Les and me just after we got married? I like the photo of the two of us laughing about something at one of our "cooking school" sessions. And then there's the photo my granddaughter took several weeks before mom died where I'm sitting next to her on the couch and I'm holding her fragile, but still pretty, hand.

I first sanded the house to remove its glossy finish. Then I painted on a coat of gesso. Next I lightly painted blotches of light pink, yellow and aqua all over the house. At the top of the peak is a copy of a small piece of a handkerchief of my mom's. I added pieces of star patterned tissue paper. At my mom's feet is torn pieces of Czech text, lightly colored green/blue, to give the feel of grass at her feet, and I've rubber stamped some flowers there too. The small wording next to Carolyn says "I love you". The photo of mom and Carolyn is a black and white photo. I used colored pencils to add color to the photo.

May Baskets

Here's two of the May baskets I made. I used textured wallpaper to make a cone, which is held together by one brad. Then I used acrylic paints to color the wallpaper. I added some Sprinkles glitter and a gold pen for accents. I painted paper doilies with gold paint and glued them inside the cone. I made a hanger using trims and ribbons. I decorated a tag for each of the baskets and put the recipient's name on the tag. I went to Barnes and Noble yesterday and found a similar project in the current issue of Somerset Home.

Hello Spring !!!

Today I don't feel so overwhelmed by grief. I can actually recognize this beautiful spring day and appreciate it. I heard the birds this morning and purposely walked outside to smell the lilacs. I'm guessing what has helped to pick me up is that I made May Baskets and delivered them to two elderly friends and my grandchildren yesterday.

The night before May 1st I was remembering how mom would take the time to make May baskets with us. She'd buy mints and nuts to put in them and then help us pick violets and lilies of the valley. My mom had so little time and even less money, but she loved us so much that she did all she could to create special days in our lives.

Last evening I found two messages for me on the phone, one from each grandchild, thanking me for the basket. I cried and thanked God for these children in my life, and then thanked mom. When I was a little kid Mom taught me to give to others and all these years later when I give May Baskets the gesture comes around full circle to give me comfort when I am lonely and missing my mom.

This photo was taken last year in our garden. The birdbath was decorated by me with ceramic tile and china.