Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all moms out there. I have had lots of "Moms" in my life but the ones that truly matter right now are Anne and Margaret. My mom, Anne McClintock, is an incredible woman. I joke about "hearing my mother's words coming out of my mouth" but I know my innate sense of right and wrong, wearing black pants to cover a multitude of sins, and knowing how to navigate a formal dinner party is all from my mother.

Margaret Ransone, my mother-in-law, is my other mom. Margaret was a home economics teacher in the local high school for 31 years and is a model cook and housekeeper. She is a very busy lady and I have grown to love and respect her over the 25 years I have known her. She loves her family fiercely and I can always count on her help if I need it. When Rannie and I met, I was very different from what she and Ralph, Rannie's Dad, had in mind for their youngest son. However, we have grown to understand each other and celebrate our differences as all successful families do.

Since this is a papercrafting site, I thought you would enjoy seeing the cards that I made for each of our Mothers. My focus for the past few months has been cleaning out my studio and making use of what I have. I will be helping a young friend with her wedding "favors" soon and wanted to try my hand at paper flowers. SO, I pulled out several scraps of each color family and got to work with my trusty Cricut. I did enjoy making these cards and for both Mama and Margaret. Anne got the yellow flowers at top and Margaret was the recipient of the red. Both were very appreciative of my time and talents!

I would love to hear your comments. Please take a moment and let me know what you are working on. Soon I will be showing my ideas for Nikki's wedding and a graduation card or two. 'Tis the season!

Best,

Tee

Travel

Ni Hao! My most recent adventure to China is now over and I have over 1,700 photos to review. Digital photography has really induced shutterbugs like me to go overboard!

China is a study in contrasts and I hope to share some of China seen through my eyes as soon as I can get over my jet-lag. Speaking of, here is one that I snapped taken over northern Alaska about a third of the way to Beijing. Such beautiful, pristine, frozen mountains!

I promise I will post more....later!

Tee

Easter

Blessings to you! My Easter was everything it should be; Family, good food, spiritual renewal.

Our daughter and son-in-law, Emmy and Michael, arrived Friday evening along with our grand-dog Spartacus which doubled our household and filled the house with lots of good feelings. It is so wonderful when they can come home!

I have included a photo of my Mom with her Easter Lily after Church. I love Easter at Irvington Baptist because the flowers highlight the stained glass window of the bapistry. So beautiful. Amoungst other activities we went to our church Sunday and then lunch at my Aunt Ella's.

I have also included a photo of my Easter cards for the family. I love this little peep with his bunny ears! It is a stamp from Impress that I hand-colored with Prisma pencils. The stamped sentiment inside (also from Impress Stamps) says "Happy Easter to you." The ribbon is from Close To My Heart and the card was from a boxed set from Michaels.

It will be a while until my next post. I will be leading a group trip to China! I know I will have lots to share when I return. In the meantime enjoy this beautiful Spring season!

Zai Jian! (So long! in Mandarin)

Tee

Family

More and more these days the word
"Family" has different meanings. Over the years I have had "brothers" and "sisters" that my Mama never delivered. I think that comes from being an only child; I have, however, been the beneficiary of lots of aunts and uncles. Which also means many wonderful cousins. I happen to be the oldest.

Since my youngest aunt is only 5 years older than me, I have been an unofficial little sister to my Mother's sisters and brother. I have always treasured my times with the "aunts," especially since I have gotten older. They are all delightful, beautiful, talented southern Ladies, as is my Mom, and we all share that kinship of WOMEN. The photo shows (l-r) Aunt Frances, Aunt Ella, Beautiful Sutton, Bernie, Mama Anne, and me.

Yesterday several of us gathered at a lunch table in a local family restaurant. The main purpose was to bid farewell to my cousin Sutton. Sutton's dad, my Uncle Jack, died in January. Sutton and Stuart, (Sutton's brother, my cousin) had come back to Virginia to be with Uncle Jack in his last days and Sutton had stayed to settle matters here. Sutton and Stuart have made their lives on the West Coast and are very successful individuals.

I realized, during the brief times that I had shared with them, that I truly loved being with my cousins, and also that I wished we lived closer so that we could enjoy each other as friends. Alas, the time has come for Sutton to resume her life after this tragic interruption. She will be taking the long way home, stopping along the way to visit friends in different parts of the country. As I mentioned to her yesterday, sometimes a commute helps ease the transition. She said that she agreed and that is the main reason she is doing it; a 4 hour flight would be too quick.

Sutton's maternal Grandmother, Bernie, (whom she affectionately calls "Boo") was also there to thank all of us for our tenderness towards Sutton during this time. We all knew that "thanks" was unnecessary as we love her, Stuart and Uncle Jack. We were all appreciative of this last opportunity to be together. Bernie plus Sutton's mom and step-dad will also be traveling to the coast later this summer in a major move of household to be near their children.

So, bonne chance mon cher cousin! I do hope we will be together again someday. Remember, tho' you now live on the west coast, you are a southern girl at heart (remember those ham biscuits) and we all stick together! I will miss you.

Tee

Bad Blogger...

Well, life has been hectic but just wanted to share a few words. Tomorrow I will be teaching a class -- "De-stressing with Distressing!" If my students are amendable, I will post a photo. This is a paper distressing class to show the great effects you can get with white core cardstock, which is offered by Close To My Heart, amongst other good companies. Did I ever tell you that I am a consultant with Close To My Heart?

Anyway, still working on cleaning and rearranging my studio. I have heard from a very good source that my Williamsburg buddy, Lizzy's, studio is now finished. I hope to get some pics from her soon.

Spring is here in Virginia by the calendar but you wouldn't know it by the temp. I will leave you with a pic I snapped at Historic Stratford Hall (home of the Lees of Virginia) last weekend at a Leadership retreat.

Happy Creating!

Tee

Scrappin' Happenin'

Saturday I had the honor of participating as a vendor for the 2nd Rice's Hotel, Hughlett's Tavern Scrappin' Happenin'! My friend Susan again asked me to help these wonderful ladies with their fund-raiser and I was happy to help. RHHT is a historic location in Heathsville, Virginia and was an Inn and Tavern in the late 1700's. Volunteers have labored long and hard to bring this group of buildings back to life and are MANIC fundraisers. They also have lots of FUN while working hard! If you are interested, here is the link to their website... http://www.rhhtfoundation.org/ .

So, approx. 40 ladies gathered for a 12 hr crop and here are a couple of photos of the event...They all had lots of fun and did lots of pages. Most did my St. Patty's Day make-n-take and Vickie was the lucky winner of my doorprize.

Amongst other news, the redo of my studio is at a halt for a time. The sad thing is that I get going on sorting and tossing and then I have an event. I have to mess everything up to plan for the event and it takes me a couple of days to get back where I was before the interruption! Two steps forward...etc. I hope to work on it again this weekend.

One of my good friends, Lizzy, is also redoing her studio so I am eagerly waiting for the finalized photos. Lizzy and Betsy, my best scrappin' pals, are VERY organized; they are neat scrappers and when we get together, it is obvious that I am their complete opposite. I am lucky if I do not have an AVALANCHE of stuff at least once falling off of my table. They are good role models but I am afraid this old dog is hard to change. Maybe I will have some pics to share when we both are done.

Have a great week and if you don't have time to scrap...make some memories!

Tee

Finally...some papercrafting!

OK folks, this blog is supposed to be about papercrafting but you've only heard my ramblings...up to now! The photos featured here are of a make-n-take card and a centerpiece door prize I am offering as a vendor in a local Scrapathon tomorrow. I chose St. Patrick's Day as a theme 'cause it is always fun to feature holidays. All of my cardstock and patterned papers are Close To My Heart. I ran the darker green mat through my cuttlebug for the paisley emboss and sanded it. The shamrock is three hearts cut from the Cricut with a ribbon stem.

The little hat is the inner roll from used ribbon and a circle cut from cs. The buckle

was cut from the Cricut. This idea was lifted from someone (sorry, cannot remember) on the Two Peas site. So cute!

So, hope you have a great weekend and I will share some photos of the Scrapathon with my next post.

Tee