An amazing day.

While the rest of the world watched the Royal Wedding,
we watched our beautiful niece and her husband exchange vows of their own.

here.}

And while we were celebrating Karie and Joey close to home, Team Team was celebrating Marti's birthday around the world! Words cannot express the gratitude I feel for the outpouring of support and the kindness shown by my blog friends to my mom on her birthday. {See the Team Teal birthday party for my mom

To say that my mom was surprised, delighted, and touched would be an understatement! Thank you so very much for the kindness, generosity and support you showed with your beautiful blog posts and comments throughout the day. I had hoped for 6 links at the end of my post, and ended up with 19 for her!!! :o) You ladies are simply the best. xo!!!

Just a few photos from a beautiful day on the planet!
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Birthday wishes for my mom, from Team Teal

Welcome to my mom's birthday post.

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Today is my mom's birthday and I wanted to do something special for her. You see, my mom has cancer, and these are some tough times.

Back in February my brother {Ron} posted a Facebook status on my mom's first day of chemotherapy, and in his status he coined the term "Team Teal." {Teal is the color that represents my mom's type of cancer.}Several weeks ago, I offered up a little giveaway {with strings attached}. The deal was that I would send the recipient a teal cancer awareness band, and that recipient would in turn reach out to my mom in prayer, thoughts, spirit, email, snail mail, or blog post for her birthday. My intention was to create a circle of thoughts and prayers that wrapped around our planet. I wanted blessings coming at her from every direction.And you know what? It worked.I sent seven teal bands to England, one to Ireland, one to Australia, and eight to various parts of the United States. I also passed out teal bands to my Arizona family, my work family, and my local friends as well.The response has been overwhelming. My mom has already been delighted to receive several lovely handmade cards from all over the world. These have helped to brighten her days when she has really needed a lift. And for that alone I am extremely grateful.So today, as we celebrate my mom's birthday, I want to thank each of you who have sent thoughts and prayers and good tidings to my mom and our family. We are touched and humbled by your kindness. Some of my sweet blog friends are participating in a birthday-link-party for my mom. At the end of this post you will find links to those who are joining in today. {Thanks SO much, ladies!!!}and Happy Birthday to my amazing mom, Marti!!!

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Spring time giveaway...

Here's a little something for you.

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I have a little accordion mini-book hanging around my craft room, so I'm giving it away here on my blog. It's a simple little book, ready for you to add photos, quotes, or whatever you'd like to its pages.

{You might remember this design from previous posts like this one and this one.}

Seems like a silly little thing to offer up, but I think you'll like it.

Oh, and I'll also throw in a few other goodies to go along.

If you'd like a chance to win, just leave a comment and I'll announce a winner {randomly selected} on Monday, May 2, 2011.
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{Thanks so much for reading my blog, leaving comments, and supporting me so kindly.}

Friday's wedding...

This Friday we'll celebrate a special day in our family. A wedding!!!

No, it's not The Royal Wedding, although we do think our niece Karie is a Princess!So when she showed up at lunch one day with a plain paper mache box to be used for collecting cards at her wedding, the wheels in my head started turning... We're so excited to celebrate her special day. Her husband-to-be {Joey} is one lucky guy!

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This weekend I stayed home and...

...enjoyed our snapdragons in full bloom;
...made egg salad sandwhiches;...took time to appreciate the Mexican primrose in our backyard; {Every year it comes back thicker and stronger.} ...made a bunch of flowers for the top of this card box for our niece; {she's getting married this Friday, the 29th!!!}...enjoyed some delicious strawberries;...worked on a little project; and ...drank wine spritzers by the pool with my girl C.

How was your Easter weekend?

Strawberries are in season {a sweet tutorial}

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My mom's kitchen is decorated with strawberry stuff. So when I saw this pattern for a strawberry shaped box, I just couldn't resist! And it was so much fun to make, I decided to do a little tutorial to show you how I did it. :o)Rather than making the box with just paper, I wanted to cover it with fabric. So I used some iron-on fusible webbing.I ironed the webbing to the back of the fabric first...peeled off the paper backing and then...ironed that onto a piece of white cardstock. I traced the pattern onto the back of the cardstock {now with fabric on the other side}... and cut it out. I used a bone folder and ruler to score the fold lines, with my soft ironing board cover as a mat,folded up along the fold lines, punched holes using my Crop-a-dile,and ran a line of tacky glue on the tab. I traced the strawberry leaves onto a piece of green cardstock, and cut it out.Laced up the top with some pretty ribbon,
filled with Hershey's kisses,and put it in the mail, addressed to my mom.Sweet, huh?

I liked this project berry much {sorry!}, I think my mom will too. ;o)
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Just a quote for Friday.

In honor of Earth Day.

"The earth is what we all have in common."

~ Wendell Berry

Ok, they're going in dirt...

Remember my carrot flower post last week?

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Well, they continue to bloom - even survived me being away for a few days without constant monitoring {good job, Douglas!}.

So I took the plunge today and put them in some dirt.We'll see what happens...
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