My Mother’s birthday luncheon 2014

As some of you know, my mother passed away in 2012 a couple of months shy of her 95th birthday. In an effort to not be sad on that day, I decided to start a new tradition of having a girls luncheon celebrating my mother’s birthday every year. I do it up all girly, use my wedding china & crystal & we have a great time. Since this is a pretty long post, I’m going to start out showing the invitations, favors & photos. Then, if you’re interested in how I made the items, that will be later in the post. Since I’m still honeymooning with my Cricut Explore, all the electronic die cuts were made with it.

So let’s start out with the invitations.

The favors:

Each gift bag included a purse sized anti-bacterial sanitizer in a nice, summer scent from Bath & Body Works, a “vanilla” & chocolate Walker’s shortbread scottie (people cookies shaped like Scottie dogs), a Close To My Heart Delicate Wings stamp set, Close To My Heart mini ink pad, and a Close To My Heart 1 inch block.

The greeting at the door…

The menu…

My Mother’s memorial candle…

Now…on to instructions.

The invitations:

My mother was a very accomplished seamstress & made most of my clothes until I was in my 20’s. I started out with this digital paper because it reminded me of a skirt she had made for me about 40 years ago. But as I continued to look at it, it was too “fallish” for my tastes for this event. I am often drawn to bright colors & in recent years, I’ve been on a bright pink, purple and chartreuse binge. SO…I modified the original digital paper from a brown background to a pink background.

Original digital paper by Adrienne Looman’s English Rose collection:

After I changed the background from brown to bright pink:

The front label/frame is from the Cricut Lacy Labels cartridge. The font of the text is Rhumba Script NF & it was SO NICE to be able to use the pen and cut in one pass! Currently, this is the feature that sets the Cricut Explore apart from the other electronic cutters on the market today! I took the teal from the digital paper above & made a solid color of that to make the flower. Then I added a gem as the center of the flower.

For the “liner”, I used a software application that is new to me, Craft Artist 2 (hereafter referred to as CA2). I used this digital paper…

…a frame from CA2 and a photo of my mother & I one Easter Sunday. My mother made our mother/daughter outfits. The photo is black & white but the suits were a light green linen

Font is Undercurrent BTN

The favor boxes

The welcome sign for the door:

The frame was from the Cricut Cindy Loo cartridge & the font was from the Cricut Chalkboard cartridge.

The menu

Font is CAC Champagne (I think that’s a font from my very old greeting card software Create A Card). Digital paper is

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