Made with Hands, Given from the Heart

My mother is a crafty little lady. My sister and I, as well as many of her friends, have several things she has made over the years; blankets, pajama pants, baskets and special seasonal decorations are just a few.

Years ago she made my sister and I Easter baskets. Since we were younger, we weren't as delicate with them as we should have been and parts of them, well, fell apart.

She replaced my sister's some time ago and I've been asking for a new one. So, for easter this year, she made one for me and one for my husband. Mine is the one with strips of green reed and Seth's has blue.

She gave them a light stain to give them the more country feel I wanted.

The design is by my cousin Lori Hopkins, who is an equally talented lady. These women put me to shame! I am blessed to be part of a family with such talent.

I can't wait to fill these baskets with Easter goodies! I will post pictures of that too.

Up-close, this is the blue one.

Here the basket is on a little beat up chair I bought cheap from an antique place. I want to re-finish it and use it for little kids' pictures.

This is a good picture of both of them.

First Easter

Pictures of this sweet little boy in his Easter Suit.

Prom

Last night Williamson H.S. had their prom. My husband and I went as chaperones and made it through the night! We snapped this picture at about 11:45 when we got home. We weren't nearly as dazzling as the teenage couples, but we clean up alright.

Vintage Venture

The trendy vintage look has me playing around in photoshop. I LOVE learning new things, so I decided to give this a whirl. I selected some photos that I thought might go well with this effect.

In the first, I played with it and figured out how I could add scratches for an even more dramatic look. I think the clearer image is a little more my style though.

I went back to some of my favorite images from the Wagner/Vitorio wedding in January. These look neat with different color tones.

And I had to do one of my little pal Reilly.

It's certainly less traditional, but it's one more thing I can put on my palette. And it's a ton of fun to play with.

Oh the Irish

We have some friends who celebrate being Irish by making corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick's day.

So, today I celebrated St. Pat's by: putting on a green shirt, eyeshadow, and earrings; heading to the grocery store; and buying my own corned beef and cabbage.

It was so beautiful out today. I was inspired to accomplish something! I came home with my groceries, opened up all the downstairs windows, put on my apron and dug in.

Here are some of the fixins: cabbage, onions and garlic. Potatoes eventually made their way into the pot too.

Behold the brisket.

It smelled so good!

And this was the final product, which we ate in pie plates b/c my husband was concerned about how juicy it was.

And yes we had a special dessert...What's this?...

Green cake!

My friend Heidi and I went ahead and dyed some cake batter last year for this festive occasion. I think I'm going to make it an annual tradition.

The first layer of frosting.

And some decoration.

This was also delicious!

I hope you had as much fun on St. Patrick's day as I did. If not, let this be your inspiration for next year!

p.s. If you can't tell, I love cooking! Not quite as much as taking pictures, but it is high up there on my list of things to do. Expect future posts...

Desperate for Design!

I am in need of some business cards. It's something I've been meaning to do for awhile. At first I was printing my own, but my printer doesn't exactly give a "professional" look.

I have designed several different cards and each time I haven't been satisfied enough to go through with the printing.

Please give me some feedback on the designs below. I am pretty happy with the front I came up with, but can't decide on a back. I'm not even sure I like any of the backs below. Feel free to give me ideas!

Front:

Back 1:

Back 2:

Back 3:

Back 4:

Back 5:

Coat Closet

My parent's coat closet is stuffed full. I'm not really sure why since my mom is the kind of gal who grabs a coat on the way out, but leaves it in the car.

Anyway, this coat closet sits at the end of a fairly long hallway, long enough for my sister and I to pretend it was a church isle and "get married" after walking down it.

Usually after I married Tom Cruise (I was a strange child) and my sister married "Morlico" (my sister was a little stranger) we would go into the coat closet and pull down the photo albums off the top shelf. My mom's h.s. senior class trip, my dad when he was in college, our baby photos and the other usual milestones/yearly events were and still are all there.

The really BIG album from my parent's wedding was usually our inspiration for play. We looked through it all the time and of course planned our own nuptials over those pages. My sister and I are both married now and had our own beautiful weddings (which were planned much differently than we first thought), but I still love looking at my parents in 1981.

They're a happily married couple and those pages show, even if it's only a little bit, where it started. So, I think that wedding albums are a special sentiment for the bride and groom, as well as others who may find some inspiration in the story they share.

Here are some pages I have been working on from a wedding. I hope you like them and are inspired to go into your own coat closets.