Mother's Day Peony Card for Let's Craft Together Blog Hop

Thank you for joining us for this month's Let's Craft Together Blog Hop. We are a group of Stampin' Up!® Demonstrators from Australia who have developed a wonderful friendship through our love of stamping and admiration of each other's creativity.

Each month, one of us takes turn to set a blog hop challenge, where we share our creativity with others through our blog hops. Be sure to hop along to them all, for lots of creative inspiration. You will see the list below.

This month it was Annette McMillan who chose the theme of our challenge and she has chosen a Mother's Day theme, with a photo inspiration based on the image below. 

Honouring my Mum with this card and blog post...

To be honest, when I first saw the brief of this blog hop, I struggled a little. I had initially thought of not participating, as Mother's Day is still a difficult day for me, having lost my Mum just a few years ago. However, I decided instead that I will honour my Mum with this card and blog hop.

My Mum is a very special person in my life and one of my greatest inspirations. 

Life never came easy for my Mum, as the second oldest of 7 kids growing up in country Victoria  during war and depression times, she knew about struggling and she learnt about the importance of family and appreciation for what she had. She learnt to be resilient, persevering through many challenges and despite it all, her faith in God remained strong, she was loving, caring and kind towards others, was content, loved life and had a fun sense of humour.

At 18 years of age Mum was the passenger in car accident when she was thrown from the vehicle and nearly lost her life. She lost one kidney in the process and through determination, perseverance and resilience she eventually recovered, less one kidney. 

A couple of years later she met my Dad, they fell in love and were married. The lived for the first 12-18 months in a tiny cottage on my Grandfather and Grandmother's property - a sultana grape growing fruit block - in a tiny country town.

After leaving the country for the big smoke of Sydney, early in their marriage to pursue business opportunities, Mum and Dad started their own industrial engraving business. They went on to have 5 children over a 12 year period, with me being the youngest by a five year age gap to my closest sister. They loved the life they had built, despite living far away from their family and had made some wonderful friends who became our surrogate aunties and uncles.

At the age of 42, Mum suffered the biggest loss of her life. My beautiful Dad and love of Mum's life was involved in a fatal glider crash and lost his life instantly (on my brothers 18th birthday). Dad was only 44. I can't even imagine what that was like for Mum. As the youngest, I was only 6 years old, so did not fully comprehend what was happening. 

With five young children and an engraving business to run, Mum had no choice but to keep going. Though inside she was struggling with her deep grief (according to my older siblings), she pushed through and again with determination and resilience, managed to keep everything running. These were tough times and she shared with me later in life that some of those days she did not know how she was going to put food on the table.

Within the next year or two, it was discovered that one of their business employees was ripping off Mum's business. This lead to financial difficulties for the business, so Mum had to close down the business and go and find work elsewhere. 

Mum then went to work full time for another similar business as their bookkeeper and was there for several years, until eventually leaving that job to go work in the city for the Bible Society, until her retirement. 

All through these years, money was always tight as Mum supported a family of five kids as a single working Mum. 

Mum always put on a brave face and continued in her persistence and resilience. She had wonderful friends and a wonderful church community who supported and encouraged her. With her family all being back in the country, spread across Victoria and South Australia, Mum yearned for her small country town and her sisters, who she missed very much. As they say you can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl. This was so true in Mum's case and she never really liked living in the city. 

Long story short and lots of things in between at the age of 62, with us kids having all grown up, left home and had started our own families, Mum did in fact move back to her home country town in Victoria. And boy did I miss her, but she was so happy to be back in the country and be near her sisters.

After a few years of living very happily in her newly built house (housing prices are much cheaper in the country), she met a man, fell in love and married. Sadly for Mum, he died 4 years later of a heart attack, while they were on an Australian outback tour with a tour group. Mum again was devastated at losing a second husband, abruptly and unexpectedly. Again she had to find that persistence and resilience to keep going. 

Shortly after this time, Mum sold her house and moved into a retirement village. Here she met some lovely friends and was surrounded by a nice caring community. 

Mum's own health had not been great since that car accident when she was 18 and developing issues with her back when I was quite young (maybe even before that) and now that she was getting older, her health declined even further. She ended up with insulin dependent diabetes, kidney failure, high blood pressure, heart disease and a whole heap of other things that went along with these conditions. Mum became critically ill and again nearly lost her life. We received a call and things were not good. I flew immediately down to be with her. She is one tough cookie though and once again pulled through, though still very unwell. 

At this point it became apparent that she was no longer able to care for herself adequately with her complicated medical needs and went into an aged care facility. She was incredibly ill at this time and it took her about 6 months to recover, then another 12 months to understand and accept why she had to stay in the aged care facility. 

As always Mum was resilient and made the best of things. She made wonderful friends of the staff (who all loved her) and of the residents. Always trying to help everyone else, despite her own physical challenges. She got involved in all the activities that she could and they even started up a weekly cooking class for Mum, as cooking was always something very special in her life. The other residents enjoyed the cooking class too. 

The aged care facility was her new home and she finally accepted it and lived life to the fullest that she could in there. I flew down and visited as often as I could and her sisters, sister in law and my cousins who lived locally were amazing, visiting her regularly. 

Over the six years living in the aged care facility we nearly lost Mum on numerous occasions through pneumonia, diabetes, heart disease and kidney failure. But she was a tough cookie and pulled through every single time, until in 2020 I got that call that nobody ever wants to hear. You need to come now and this will be the last time. 

In February 2020 for those last few days, my sisters, our husbands, my niece and one of my aunts sat with Mum, attended to her, sang to her and reminisced with her until she took her final breath. It was the hardest time of my life and yet it was an honour to be with her as she left this earth for her Heavenly resting place.

It reads as a sad ending to the story but Mum lives on in me, every single day and is with me always. She had taught me so much in my life about love, faith, kindness, compassion and resilience, not to mention passing on her love of baking yummy things, which has also been passed on to my daughters. 

So with this card I honour and appreciate my beautiful Mum and I know she would have absolutely loved this card.

Full product list for my card and direct shopping link can be found HERE. 

Measurements

Card Base - Pretty In Pink Cardstock - 21cm x 14.85cm, scored and folded at 10.5cm

Layer - Friends of the Ocean Designer Series Paper - 10.1cm x 14.45cm

Layer -  2024-2026 In Color 6"x6" Designer Series Paper - 3cm x 11.5cm

Layer - Basic White Cardstock - 3.7cm x 13cm

Die Cut Circle - Basic Beige Cardstock - 9cm x 9cm

Flowers - Basic White Cardstock - 10.5cm x 14.8cm

Sentiment - Basic White Cardstock - 10.5cm x 4cm

I hope my project has inspired you in your creativity and encouraged you to create something beautiful for someone special in your life.

Be sure to hop along to the other blogs in this hop for more creative inspiration and to see how the other Design Team Members interpreted this challenge. Click on the names below. 

Blog Hop Index

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Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today. 

Have a great day and Happy Crafting. 

Love Mandy