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By: Bowie Style,
on 3/1/2012
its march 1st today and in just over two weeks time on march 18th it will be mother's day here in the uk. this occasion makes you feel as though spring is in the air and easter is just around the corner. the paperchase range of mother's day cards are now instore (and some are also online) and so i thought i'd post up some of my favourites.
By: Bowie Style,
on 3/29/2011
more mother's day cards today as we approach the big day on sunday 3rd april. these designs were spotted in clinton cards where as usual the best contemporary designs were to be found in their 'a la mode' section.
By: Bowie Style,
on 3/28/2011
a selection of designs for mother's day as spotted in marks & spencer. most of the cards were embellished and the packaging for this years gift ranges were based on watercolour flowers.
By: Bowie Style,
on 3/28/2011
this coming sunday - the 3rd april - is mother's day here in the UK, and so this week i'll be posting some of the gorgeous designs to be found on the british high street. where else would i start but in my favourite store paperchase where i found the perfect mix of cute characters and bright florals.
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By: Shelli,
on 5/9/2010
I have never been someone who thought I would be great at being a mom. And since I've had kids, I'm sure other would say my #mommyfails are off the charts.
1) Patience of a Saint? #mommyfail! I have no patience. I'm the person who pops the toast early.
2) Craft Mom? #mommyfail! I am soooooooo not crafty. To me, using a crayon is an art. This includes sewing buttons, hemming, making American Girl clothes. Nuttin honey!
3) Kids are the center of my world? #mommyfail! Yes, I can be a bit self-centered. It's just now, it's with a kid. I go to story time at B&N so I can look at books in the kid section while my kids listen to other people read. I'm still working on it.
4) Mommy Speak? #mommyfail! I don't enjoy talking about my kids all day, every day. Really I don't. And, when I go out with my friends, I don't want to hear about their friends kids even more. I dont' want to compare nap schedules, poop routines, and discipline techniques from Supernanny.
5) Mommy and Me? #mommyfail! I do not attend these classes. One because on a grammar level - its just plain wrong. Two - I do not like to sing in large groups. Three, they lie - it is not just Mommy and me - its 20 other mommies and their 20 kids. I prefer to conduct my own classes at home. Cheaper and quieter. I heard once that the class should be changed to: "Scared Sh*tless women who have kids and are going out of their freaking' minds so they need to get out of the house before they go certifiably nuts" class. Wait, maybe that's too long for a brochure.
7) Mommy clothes? #mommyfail! I've never bought into mommy jeans, mommy hair cuts, and mommy stores. Excuse me but I don't want to LOOK like I haven't had sex in a couple months. Whether I have or not.
8) Hot mamma? #mommyfail! I'd like to think I've "still got it" and maybe to my husband I still do. But at for drinks, going to concerts, I realize the phrases like MILF and "hot mama," do not apply to me. Being a mommy is only sexy to us and our husbands. And that might only be b/c we take care of their kids so they pretend we're as hot as we used to be.
Now don't go calling DFAX.
I feed my kids. Even if it is from a microwave.
I pack their lunch. Even if it is a lunchable.
I read them books. Even if it is the same one every night.
I bathe them. Even if it is every OTHER night.
I sacrifice writing, sleep, and exercise to make sure they are happy. Even though I may grumble about it sometimes.
But I love my kids more than my life. I mean, I've given it up, haven't I? ;)
Besides, if any of you tried to harm them, I would personally gouge your heart out with my son's Elmo knife and serve it on my daughter's Dora plate.
See? I'm a good mommy.
Who says these things are all #mommyfails??
So #mommyfail or not.
I have realized I cannot let others tells me what a #mommysuccess looks like.
Except my kids :)
By: Kit Grady,
on 5/4/2010
A little picture from "Just One More, Mom" with Kaeden Books done a couple years ago. All you Mama's know that call from the next room. Of course after "I want something to drink, read me a story" and other such things. So Happy Day to you! ( Mother or not )
I'm going to have to blame my lack of inspiration, imagination, and drawing skill to the fact that I've had a cold for the last week so my brain is a fuzzy mess. I'm not happy with this one, but it did at least provide much needed therapy.
I now have to figure out what to draw next. Still uninspired ... NOT a good beginning to the new year, but hopefully (and I'm always hopeful) I'll catch up soon enough and will find new delights to capture my attention. Life has been full of distracting puzzles that I can't seem to figure out recently. Perhaps it's just time to let them go and look for new ones to work on. I could always conquer my fears and procrastination and try messing around with paints finally ... :) Cheers!
Red Rose cards & matching gifts at Floating Lemons at Zazzle
I'm going to have to blame my lack of inspiration, imagination, and drawing skill to the fact that I've had a cold for the last week so my brain is a fuzzy mess. I'm not happy with this one, but it did at least provide much needed therapy.
I now have to figure out what to draw next. Still uninspired ... NOT a good beginning to the new year, but hopefully (and I'm always hopeful) I'll catch up soon enough and will find new delights to capture my attention. Life has been full of distracting puzzles that I can't seem to figure out recently. Perhaps it's just time to let them go and look for new ones to work on. I could always conquer my fears and procrastination and try messing around with paints finally ... :) Cheers!
Red Rose cards & matching gifts at Floating Lemons at Zazzle
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By: Shelli,
on 5/10/2009
You Know Your a Mom When...
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By: Kristina Coia,
on 5/9/2009
There are a lot of things that we take for granted. The plastic wrappers that individualize cheese singles, those couple of seconds between songs on a playlist that give our minds a chance to cool off from the previous song and get psyched for the next one. But possibly the most important and most common thing that we take for granted is the impact a parent makes on our lives.
So, maybe your relationship with your mom isn’t that great. She’s still the reason you’re here, and the one who paid for the cheese singles and the iTunes cards. And maybe your relationship with your mother is wonderful. Do you recognize every red sock pulled out of the laundry to rescue your white hoodie? Every yellow light sped through to get to your three-hour-long clarinet recital? Every time your toothbrush magically appeared in your sleepover duffel when you swore you had left it on your sink?
Mother’s Day was inspired by common meetings held by mother’s who lost their children in battle during the Civil War. Their meetings brought awareness to a mother’s role in American society, leading to a Mother’s Day Movement on the second Sunday in May of 1877, regarding the temperance movement, similar to a modern Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Ever since then, the observance of Mother’s Day has continued every second Sunday of May since.
What’s the big deal? Mothers have been our first everything. Our first best friend, our first idol, our first hero, and the first one we went to when we were sick, upset, or simply felt like bugging someone. Clearly, Mom deserves some recognition for being there every time. Conveniently enough, there’s a specific day on the calendar to do just that!
So, if you don’t have a fortune to spend on jewelry or flowers, or enough creativity to create a photo collage, or enough time to clean the house with a toothbrush, take just one minute to say thanks. You don’t even have to do it in person! Write a list of the things you appreciate your mother for; things she would never expect you to notice, like the fresh carton of milk in the fridge or the cell phone charger (which you thought you had lost) that wound up sitting on your bed when you got home from school. Put the list in her purse or wallet, or any other place where she’s bound to find it. And, if you’re that reluctant to say anything, send her a text that reads “tnx”. Those three letters will mean more than any number of gardenias or begonias.
Every day is Mother’s Day, so let Mom know that you appreciate her. Start to notice those little things that she does for you. Those things can add up quickly, and deserve an expression of gratitude every once in a while. Don’t take your mother for granted. Show her you care.
Happy Mother’s Day!
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By: Scott Laming,
on 5/4/2009
If there is one person who personifies selflessness, un-wavering love and caring the first to come to mind should be your mother. She cradled you for your fist nine months and held your hand though all the challenges life could throw at you. Like with all true heroes books are littered with examples of hundreds of miracle moms from the classic Hester Prynne in the Scarlet Letter, who taught her daughter it's not shameful to have pride in one’s self, to the more contemporary Mrs. Wesley the super poor super mom who took in Harry Potter like he was her own son.
10. Jeanettes Mother from Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
The main character is a young girl named Jeanette, who is adopted into a fundamentalist religious community. As Jeanette grows up she discovers that she is a lesbian and finds love and happiness with another local girl. When her psychotic mother finds out she publicly condemns the girl in front of their church/town and proceeds to tie the girl down and attempt two lengthy exorcisms, one via a 14 hour beating and another 36 hours locked in a parlor without food.
9. Sarah from Little Children by
Tom Perrotta
Sarah joins the ranks of the litany of literary mothers who neglect their children to focus the self gratification of an affair. While defiantly not the only woman in literature to commit this motherly sin she is getting singled out, I can only have ten on the list.
8. Gertrude from Hamlet by
Shakespeare
The fact that she marries her brother in law, who killed her husband, is proof that she`s nuts but what really makes Gertrude a certifiable psycho is that despite all the adultery and killing she tries a little too hard to show compassion to Hamlet giving the kid a serious Oedipus complex.
7. Jocasta from Oedipus the King
by Sophocles
Speaking of Oedipus... Everyone in this story is too stupid and selfish for words and Jocasta is no exception. Too proud to kill her child to protect her kingdom, too stupid to not sleep with someone who is half her age when the gods have proclaimed she will commit incest, and soulless enough not to track down who killed her husband; she and the rest of her family are the perfect pawns to entertain the Greek gods.
6. Sophie Portnoy from Portnoy`s
Complaint by Philip Roth
Alexander Portnoy is a deranged neurotic mess who, unable to enjoy sex, continues to seek release with more bizarre and deviant acts. To Find the root of Alexander`s issues one doesn’t have to look to far beyond his smothering, flirting, fussing mother who wouldn’t even let him use the bathroom without overseeing what he had accomplished.
5. The mother/stepmother in
Hansel and Gretel by Brothers Grimm
She convinces her woodcutter husband to leave their kids out in the forest to die. The children display intelligence and cunning to make it back to the house when the woman gets her husband to trudge them off even deeper into the forest. Child labor would even have been a more motherly option, I mean it was practically fashionable in the 19th century. Abandonment = bad mothering, at least she snuffs it in the end.
4. Norma Bates from Psycho by
Robert Bloch
While most of her emotional abuse and tirades
about the evils of women and sex go on behind the scenes in this novel, the
emotionally crippled murderous fruits of her labor take center stage. Norma Bates defines the role of the psychotic mother in fiction
3. Margaret White from Carrie by
Stephen King
Mother of Carrie White, Margaret was religious fanatic who believed nearly everything was sin and became physically and emotionally abusive to her daughter in an effort to get her to conform to her devout lifestyle, usually by locking her in a closet until she prayed for forgiveness. That kind of mother would send anyone into a telekinetic fury.
2. Petal from The Shipping News
by E. Annie Proulx
She leaves her husband shortly after his parents commit suicide and runs off with her lover, but not before selling her daughters to a black market adoption agency... her only redeeming quality is that she gets killed off in a car crash so early in the book.
1. Corinne Dollanganger from
Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews
After Marrying her father’s half-brother Corinne Dollanganger is widowed, and forced to return to her astringed family home with her four children. Her mother agrees to her moving back on the condition that Corinne hides the (illegitimate) children from Malcolm, her husband and Corinne’s father, until he dies. Instead of working it out on her own she stuffs the children into an attic for years where they are generally ignored and become malnourished, delusional, incestuous and develop every social abnormality in the book. Oh yeah she also tries to kill them off.
Honourable mention goes to Viviane Joan from Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Viviane (Vivi) really is a good mother but vanity gets the best of her when she sees an interview with her daughter (Siddalee) in Time magazine where Siddalee expresses her opinions of an unhappy childhood. Vivi proceeds to act like a four year old and goes berserk and launching a war against her daughter, refusing to talk to her and even taking down family photos.... way to suck it up and control the ol ego for the family Vivi. Vivi would make this list except that by the end of the story both her and her daughter once again see eye to eye and really Vivi is just guilty of caring too much.
These gorgeous flowers are springing up all over the place, so imagine my delight when I found bunches growing in my front garden! I have them in white as well but these purple irises are just so wonderfully vibrant that I had to draw one of course, so went out with my trusty little camera and took tons of pics. I haven't done it justice but here's the result.
Purple Iris cards and products at zazzle
These gorgeous flowers are springing up all over the place, so imagine my delight when I found bunches growing in my front garden! I have them in white as well but these purple irises are just so wonderfully vibrant that I had to draw one of course, so went out with my trusty little camera and took tons of pics. I haven't done it justice but here's the result.
Purple Iris cards and products at zazzle
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By: Lizzy Burns,
on 3/30/2009
Mothers & Children. National Geographic. 2009. Copy supplied by publisher. Non Fiction. Available from publisher, as well as from sites like Amazon.
Photographs from around the world of mothers and children.
It's a small book; I was expecting something like that Sisters
This is a smaller book; more intimate, less showy, easier to hold, to look at together, to share. The photos are of mothers and children, small and grown, from around the world and different times. Credits give the location of the photograph and the name of the photographer; by omitting the names of the people in the photos, and by not saying anything about them, the people -- despite age, race, ethnicity -- become every person. A photo album for all of us.
My favorites? It has changed each time I look at this book. First time, it was the sleeping baby in a background of red fabric (Shenyang, Manchuria); then it was the upside-down children, laughing, parents legs in the background, holding the kids upside down (Red Lodge, Montana). When I read it again, for this post, it changed to the parent saying farewell to their son, a soldier, in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Non Fiction Monday: at Tales From The Rushmore Kid
Links: (interesting to read the ones that are photography blogs!)
My Twitter Review
Portals & KM review
Epic Edits Weblog review
Meditations On A Moment review
blogs of photographers review
© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
Today is Mothers day on every planet, including todays creature's one. This sweet boy has searched for hours for the perfect gift for his mother: A copy of the latest Dione Cenila romance novel. His favorite food is gummy worms and his biggest pet peeve is when people throw take out wrappers into the streets (he's a big environmentalist).
Same Rules for this one: First to name gets the honors!
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By: Writing for Children,
on 3/26/2008
Reviewed by Suzanne Lieurance
Title: Just Mom and Me: The tear-out, punch out, fill-out book of fun for girls and their moms
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Publisher: American Girl
Publication Date: March 2008
ISBN-10: 1593693400
ISBN-13: 978-1593693404
Format: Spiral Bound
Suggested Retail Price: $9.95
Here’s a great new book, just in time for Mother’s Day because it will make the perfect gift for any young girl to give her mom. The book is full of fun activities that will help mother and daughter really get to know each other better and enjoy themselves in the process. For example, they can write a story together, or plant a garden, or just create an at-home spa and enjoy some “girl time” without the men in the family.
The book includes recipes, fun surveys for mother and daughter to take together, spots for photographs, and all sorts of ideas for both silly and serious activities that are bound to become traditional rituals for women with daughters. Punch out door hangers, bookmarks, coupons, and CD case covers add to the fun.
American Girl, Just Mom and Me, mothers and daughters, Mothers Day
By: Scribe Chronicler of Aventar,
on 8/27/2007
“Sugoi-desuuuuu….”
“Oh my…”
“I have no idea what to say.”
“I agree with Hoshi. Sugoi.”
“Well, since nobody is going to talk, I’ll just say here’s the new Warrior of the Storms Page. Tons of new stuff. Have fun.”
I just love your blog! I hope one day to turn some of my designs into print. For now, I enjoy every one of your posts!
some lovely ones in there, thanks for sharing x
gorgeous cards!