Mother's Day Cards and Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Hi there everyone. Hope you had a wonderful Mother's day. I am a little late at wishing you all a great day. Finally got my pictures into the computer. A little slow here. We had a nice day. Went to church and watched Jimmy Swaggart on the big screen. Always a good service even though we are not in Baton Rouge, I can still feel the Holy Spirit in Forest Junction when watching on TV!!!

Usually on Mother's Day the ladies are given a gift for Mother's Day. Being I am the only lady there plus the Pastor's wife, I got two bags of pop corn and two Giant Pansies, one purple, one red....so pretty!! We went home and I made gyros and oven fries....yum so good. Wish we could have gone out to eat....would have been fun to not have to do the dishes afterwords.

Mother's Day has sometimes been hard to deal with as even though I had a baby....I was told, that baby had to be given up for adoption. A decision I still regret to this day. That baby is now 49 yrs old....wow time does fly!!! She has two sons and one son has had a son.....I guess that makes me a mother, grandmother and great- grandmother. Three labels, I have but don't have....oh well that is life, we make decisions, or they are made for us, then we have to live with those decisions for the rest of our lives. 

Okay....on to my card making. I recently purchased this embossing folder from Stampin'up which makes beautiful 3D flowers and roses….I fell in love with the image the moment I saw it. You had to buy $50 worth of product and got this floral embossing folder for free. I asked my Stampin'up lady if there was some way I could buy the folder without having to buy $50 worth of product. She checked into it and said I could buy her folder and she would order another one for herself.....nice lady.

So in the above card, I used gold card stock then rubbed black ink on the flowers and a little bit of green on the leaves. Placed the image on brown card stock.....such a pretty card. If you can see it, I stamped and embossed a Happy Birthday verse. This floral image can be used for just about any kind of card, Thanks, Birthday, Thinking of you, Sympathy, Mother's day etc. 

These next two Mother's Day cards, the card on the right, I used silver card stock, rubbed black ink on the flowers then versa mark and embossed with clear embossing powder. Made for a very smooth finish. The card on the left was black card stock and I rubbed silver paste on the parts I wanted to shine the most. 

I looked on Pinterest and found lots of ideas using this embossing folder.....the ideas are endless, can hardly wait to try them all. Chalks, copic markers, water color pencils, Twinkling H2O, lots of ideas on the horizon.

In these two pictures are the chocolate covered strawberries. They did not last long, I made them Friday night and ate the last of them 30 minutes ago. Yes, I shall make these again....maybe for JP's birthday this next Friday. He will be 72 years old.....when did we both get this old?????

I melted the chocolate in the mic and added butter to make it creamy then dunked the strawberries in the chocolate and sprinkled the strawberries with coconut flakes. So good!!!

Well, time to close this post before I get too wordy and start boring you. You all have a great rest of the day. Tomorrow JP has an appointment with the foot Doctor and Tuesday I have an appointment to find out what my A1C is. JP has to renew his drivers licence on Wednesday....gosh this will be a busy week and I have to decide if I am going to bake a cake or buy one....that is something I am not too good at.....baking cakes and decoration....I am no Cake Boss!!!

Take care and keep looking up, better days are coming.
Cheers ~ Louise

♥May Day ~ May Day♥

Well, today is May Day...........WHERE IN THE WORLD DID JANUARY, FEBRUARY, MARCH AND APRIL GO!!!!!!! I don't know, the older I have gotten the more faster time is flying and maybe that isn't such a bad thing, what with the way this world is going. I wonder how much longer we will be living the good life before something drastic happens and all is lost. Life as we know it will be no more. Guess that is why God says to take one day at a time and enjoy each gift He has given. Yesterday is over, Tomorrow is the future and Today is a present. I think that is the way that saying goes.

Mother's Day is about a week away. Nothing special will be happening here, as I am not a mother to anyone. I have never much liked Mother's Day as it has only brought pain. I had a baby and had to put her up for adoption. Stepfather and Mother's decision, if I put the baby up for adoption I will always have a home with them, but if I decide to keep the baby I will never have a home with them.............was I going to be disowned? I don't know, back in those days being pregnant and not married was a terrible sin...........and still is cause it is NOT the way God planned for us. Satan had a big hand in my life trying to destroy my life. I have regretted my decision of 40 years ago.........wishing I never gave up my baby. Probably only because I was never able to have anymore babies. Now as I grow older, I wish I had a daughter or son and grandchildren. I am so envious of women with children and grandchildern..........where did I go wrong???????? Oh well, so much for Mother's Day..........I hate it!!!!

A new thing in my life, I finally took the plunge and am now going to "Inches-A-Weigh" I need to do something with this body that has gotten so out of shape. Gosh, I am finding it hard to put on my socks and bend over. When I look in the mirror I look like the "biggest loser" before they lost all their weight. Went to Catherine's last week to try on some clothes and to no avail.....I looked like two-ton-tessie!!!! Even in the "big girls shop" I could not hide the flab.

So "Inches-A-Weigh" is for women, they put you on a diet, mine is about 1500 calories, you write down everything you eat, and how many calories you've consummed. I got 6 boxes of food, protein bars, hot chocolate, juice, pudding/shake, mac and cheese and fettucini. Then the big thingy is going to IAW to exercise. They have 6 beds to lay on that do different things, waist twists, leg lifts, bumpers for the upper back and buns, vibrating bed then the relaxing bed that sort of messages everything. Then theres the riding bycicle, and tredmill which I do about 10 minutes each. Gosh I was so full of energy yesterday when I came home, did about an hour of work outside...........that was more pep then I have had in a long time. I hope by May 23 I will have lost 10-15lb and maybe 15 inches.............we'll see what happens.

Well, I should go for I have to get ready to go to IAW. Talk to you later.
Louise