Happy Mother's Day

What an awesome Mother's Day!!! I am so thankful for all of the blessings in my life.

My day started off with a card from my son along with two Mr. Goodbars {my favorite candy}.

Dear Handyman threw together a breakfast of sausages, bell peppers, hash browns, English baked beans and scrambled eggs. Perfection without the restaurant crowds.

We worked a little on our new {to us} RV. We named this RV, Lucy after Lucille Ball in the movie, The Long, Long Trailer. I will add photos of Lucy another time.

Mid-day we went to a Japanese bakery that had the best cream puff pastry with fresh strawberries.

The bakery is called Cream Pan in Tustin, CA. In the time it took me to take this photo, Dear Handyman ate two of the pastries. They aren't very big but they are delicious!

I wanted to go to the scrapbooking store but they were closed today. I will treat myself next weekend.

Then we went to Fashion Island in Newport Beach, CA. The weather was warm and it was a beautiful day to walk around the stores.

It is always fun to people-watch especially at Fashion Island. I love the koi pond and watching the little children fascinated with the koi fish.

This shopping center is so high-end that I can't afford to buy anything except in the book store. I treated myself to the current issue of Where Women Create, Business. There is an wonderful article about my friend, Eileen Hull and her Paper Trails adventure. I also bought a book about modern calligraphy. I want to improve my calligraphy skills.

Finally, dinner was cooked by Dear Handyman. It was a feast of shrimp cocktail and crab legs. We devoured a pound of shrimp and a pound each of crab legs. I feasted like a queen!

What a perfect day! I couldn't ask for a more relaxing day. I truly am blessed and so thankful for my life.

Happy Mother's Day to all of the strong and brave mothers out there. Hope your life is blessed today and every day.

Mother's Day Coupon Book

Mother's Day is fast approaching so I wanted to make something to celebrate all of the mothers out there.

I used to make coupon books for my mother when I was little. Inside were handwritten chores that I promised to do when asked. So to continue this tradition, I created a Mother's Day coupon book.

I used the Sizzix, Bigz Pro Die, Pocket Page and Tag that I designed. It will be available in craft stores in May. This is exactly the type of project I had in mind when I created this die.

I also used the Flowers, 3-D die to embellish the cover. All of the papers are from Cosmo Cricket.

Here are the inside pages with their removable coupon tags.

Here are a few design tips:

I used four sheets of double-sided cardstock. I also cut additional tags out of solid-color cardstock. Once everything was folded I began embellishing the pages.

I die cut the 3-D flowers and then lightly inked the edges. After they were glued to the page, I added small pearl buttons in the center. 

I used double-sided foam adhesive to slightly raise the bee off of the page. This added a little dimension without adding too much bulk.

 I first stitched the lace onto the page and then glued the rick-rack on top of the stitching.

 Nothing is complete without vintage buttons. The card that reads "Bon Appétit" had a straight edge along the top which didn't match with the scallop edge of the pocket so I added the buttons to hide the edge.

I had cut the blue zigzag edge off of the tag on the cover that reads "For You". I used the leftover zigzag pieces to soften the edges of this red bowl tag. The brad was meant to read "WOW" but everyone knows that MOM is WOW upside down.

 I added a few bits of bling to the center of these flowers.

I left the last page very simple. I envision this as the page where you could add a personal note to thank Mom for everything she does. This could also be the page where the gift certificate to the spa could be included... (hint hint, in case my son reads this).

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