Mother's Day Surprise

Let me just take a moment to tell you that I have the most amazing mother on the planet.  Of course she is my mother, but I wouldn't trade her for all the world.  If I could have hand-picked a mother, I wouldn't have been able to pick a better one. 

My momma is so many things:  intelligent, caring, compassionate, hard-working, selfless, beautiful, patient, kind, generous, forgiving, devoted, and my WHOLE world! (among many other things)  I don't know how I could make it through a full week without the listening ear and wise advice that my momma gives.  With my family being in Florida I have to settle with the e-mails and phone calls for 90% of the year, but those moments when we can be together are priceless to me.

My  momma is the embodiment of the woman, wife, and mother that I strive to be daily.  I try to drink up everything I can learn from her any chance I get.  If I can be 1/10th of the woman my mother is to me, then I will be successful.

I love you momma!!

And of course she makes a great mother-in-law and loves my husband just like he is one of her own. (Sometimes I think she likes him more than me ;0)

Sooooo - today is the big day that I reveal my super secret project that I have been working on!  Yay!!  Of course I was working on this project for my momma for mother's day. And since she is my momma and actually reads my blog, I had to keep it a surprise...hopefully you will forgive me. :0) 

If there is anything that my momma is good at, it is being a mother.  Since she no longer has her real babies under her roof, she is the mother to 5 (all rescued) fur-babies.  

Maximum (German shepherd) 
Birthday - October 2003

Mollie (basset hound)

Birthday - May 2006

Manny (black tom cat)

Birthday - October 31, 2002

Zoe (calico)

Birthday - June 6, 2004

MoMo Ferrari (tabby)

 Birthday -  November 15, 2010

I wanted to make her something special so I got inspiration from this post on The Crafted Niche.  Of course my creativity spark only runs so deep, so I am usually copying someone else's idea pretty closely but this one ran me into a few dead-ends that forced me to think.

I began this project by searching for the encyclopedias that I would need and putting daddy on a mission to get the just-right shots for silhouettes of all 5 of momma's babies.  The encyclopedias were a no-go so I came up with another idea.  I researched the history of each animal (German Shepherd originated in Germany, Basset Hound in France, first documented Tabby was in the manger with Jesus, first documented domesticated black cat was in Egypt, and first documented calico was in Calicut India).  I then took these histories and cut and paste them into Google translate and translated them into the language of the country from which they originated (German, French, Aramaic, Arabic, and Tamil).  I printed these pages and then tea stained them to create the impression of them being old.  (See my tea stain tutorial here).

I then took the images that daddy got secretly for me and created silhouettes of each animal (see my silhouette tutorial here).  First, I tried tea-staining and then printing the silhouettes on the dried paper....the printer didn't like that very much, so then I printed the writing, then the silhouette, then I tea-stained.  That worked much better. :0)

Zoe Callahan

Manny Callahan

MoMo Ferrari Callahan

Maximus Callahan

Mollie Callahan

I framed each piece (dogs in 8x10 and cats in 5x7) and these are some ways that I imagine it will look on a wall in my momma's house.

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

But of course she can hang them however she wants :0).  I didn't ship these yet, because I am so fearful of them not arriving in one piece.  So if you are reading this, you are seeing my momma's mother's day gift the same time she is!  

I hope you love them as much as I do, Momma!  I will bring them down with me in July and I can't wait to make some for myself!