My "Other" Mother

My mother-in-law is turning 60 this month (June 21st to be exact).  We are doing something special for her birthday and as one of her gifts, friends and family are writing letters to her to be placed in a scrapbook.  I'm not very good at writing letters, I have a hard time putting my thoughts and feelings into words.  I was looking around online, trying to find a poem or saying that would be nice as my contribution to the scrapbook.  Let me tell you....there are some very cheesy mother-in-law poems.  And then I found the poem "My 'Other' Mother".  There were different variations, so I put together bits and pieces from them and came up with something I liked.

I didn't want to just type up the poem with a nice font and then print it.  Using Picnik (LOVE this site...I have a membership but you can use some of the program for free), I came up with this:

I thought this poem was perfect and I love how this came out.  Simple and personal.  Hope she likes it!

Birthday Present!

My niece turned four this past week and I wanted to make her something fun for her birthday.  She loves dress up and when I saw this skirt, I knew I had to make it for her!  I purchased the pattern, because I knew I wouldn't be able to figure out how to even start making the skirt and I knew I would use again for other birthday gifts (I have five nieces!).

After lots of sewing, ruffling, seam ripping, and sewing some more...this is what I came up with.