March's Postcard of the Month

Late winter sun.  

Trying to come up with an inspiration for March's card in late February,

right after my mother died, I caught the sunset lighting the trees and hills on fire.

She'd been a red-head.  Seemed fitting.  :-)

Yup.  That's one year old me, with Mum, at the family place in Nelson, NH.

The Fixin's

The rubber-stamped trees, stamped on white tissue paper:

The Steps: The Movie:

The Steps

17 this month

Lake Champlain Chocolates orange foil 'hills':

Fish fin* 'Pine branches':

Panel of 15 of March's postcards:

FIN.

*Fish paper: 

Addendum - Mum

This was the photo we chose for Mum's obit:

It completely reflects how she just beamed!

My mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimers @ 12 years ago, and for the last 7 years of her life, she had lived at the Elizabeth Hughes Memory Care Unit, a part of the Alice Peck Day Hospital complex, in Lebanon, NH.  She was mostly very healthy and active, always so gregarious.  

I visited and took photos of her

and selfies of us

just about every week of those 7 years.  

We often drew the flowers that I brought her every week,

especially the vivid Nasturtiums that bloomed so prolifically in my gardens in late summer, early fall.

The colored pencils that we drew with were comprised of some Crayolas,

as well as 36 remnants from a set of 72 Derwent Watercolour pencils

that Mum had bought for me when we moved to England, in 1963.  :-)

We also colored in a variety of wonderful coloring books I found for her over the years,

and played with fabulous paperdolls!

This is a photo of Mum in her American Airlines Stewardess uniform @ 1950,

next to her 'Fashions of the 50s' paperdolls.

We also went on a couple of windy and dramatic cruises on Lake Champlain

And just had sweet times together.

Mum fell and broke her hip on the morning of February 21st, slipped into unconsciousness, and peacefully passed away 3 days later. My father, sister and I were able to be with her during these last days and breaths.

I cut up her blue pajamas and made little Lavender and Rosemary sachets for all her caretakers.

This is the last of the thousands of photos I took of my mother over the past 7 years.

Joan Carolyn Foster Barndt

September 1, 1928 - February 24, 2018

https://prod1.meaningfulfunerals.net/obituary/joan-barndt?fh_id=12873

February's Postcard of the Month

Heart shelter.  Half a heart (but not half-hearted).  Have a heart.

 I started with this idea of the tree branches twining into hearts -

it was inspired by this tree I see

when stopped at the traffic lights on my way back from the pool several mornings a week -

but I didn't think I could get quite the effect that I wanted, so I moved on to this one:

And then I just jumped in and started production, hoping the rest would evolve as I worked!

The Fixin's

and

Steps: The Movie

The Steps

(14 this month)

I liked using the piece of picture framing* to make these 'dots',

even though they were mostly hidden by the red lace paper, 

I just had to add some more of the 'Ethereal' paper.  :-)

There were really 15 steps -

I had glued the pink tissue paper to the back side of the red lace paper

before I started on my production line

The trees were 'punched' from red, black and gold marbled paper.

Thought I should add some more 'dots':  

I figured out what this needed.  Some thready tendrils.  :-)

And a smooth edge.

And an actual heart.

 Panels of 15 of February's postcards

Pretty cool - right side up, or upside down, the 3 lines under the trees were exactly in the middle.

I hadn't planned it that way.  :-)

Fin.

* And I used it again to make the dots in the later steps.