Flowers, friends and a new floor

Oh what a beautiful day today has been, I hope you are all enjoying the warming rays of the sun as much as I am. I arrived at the shop today to begin the refit and was welcomed by this gorgeous bunch of lush tulips - what a beautiful start to the day. Thankyou June, they are so pretty and cheering up my fireplace at home as I type this.

The tulips make me want to paint,

Something about the way they drop

Their petals on the tabletop

And do not wilt so much as faint.

A E Stallings

First up today I have my mum's mothers day 'card'

Anita came round on one of our recent craft days and gave me these shaped chipboards to make something with, and this is what I created. ( Thanks Anita)

The flower is one I made from a multitude of layers of tissue paper.

Within the covers I created six little pockets to house my tags

I kept the tags simple with some quotes about mums, writing my own mothers day greeting on the back of the first one. And as the finished creation was an odd shape I made a co-ordinating box to present it in.

This next card is one I made for my dear friend Margaret. I used the same range of papers I had used for mums card. The card was for a special birthday (21 + VAT). Margaret has become know as my other mum, she keeps her eye on me and looks out for me when my own mum is not there to keep me on the straight and narrow. In fact since having the shop I have inherited three extra 'mums', Margaret, Bonnie and Rose who have all taken me under their wing.

There are two extra pages, meaning additional space for some special words.

The final page, the friends Stamp is one by Stampin' Up. As is the flourish around all the edges of the nesties, I used Weathered Wood Distress ink for all the inking and stamping.

And the gang at yesterdays celebration, we all met for lunch and laughs, the photo shows ( left to right ) Margaret and her lovely friend Janet, My mum and Dad, Nicki and Anita. Chrissie was there also but had to leave a little earlier than the rest of us. It really was a lovely day, we all laughed so much we went home with aching ribs , there was lots of fun and frivolity and the usual amount of banter and teasing.

Brian turned up at tea time to whisk Margaret off to the second part of her days celebrations, I managed to snap this photo just before we left for home, I love the way they are both looking at each other.

Finally a little shop update, this was the lovely supersmooth and level floor after the screed went down at the end of last week. The floor covering started going down today, gorgeous Camaro tiling, it is looking fantastic already - can't wait to see it finished. We began preparation for the painting and refit of the shop fittings so hopefully with a bit of hard work we should be open again in about a weeks time (fingers crossed) Class dates will be announced as soon as I have all the new stock in place.