My Birthday Girl

Hi, this is Dan, Maggie's husband, guest blogging today. Actually, unbeknownst to her, I've snuck into the Mag Rag to post a message on this very special day,

Maggie's 60th birthday!

I thought it would be fitting to tell her blog followers just how amazing she is and how lucky I am to have had her as my wife these past 37 years. I find it difficult to believe so much time has passed since I met this gorgeous woman and even more difficult to believe she married me.

Pictures show that we've aged a little, but when I look at her today, I see the beautiful college girl who swept me off my feet and created my fondest memories. I see the artist who continuously awes me with her creations and ideas, and inspires me with her gifts. I see my best friend who challenges me, who laughs with me, and who forgives my screw-ups. I see the loving and patient mother who raised our daughter and helped a father to understand that love is patience and action. I see my confidant, my encouragement, my better half, certainly. But most of all I see the love of my life, the one who will always make my next day better.

Happy Birthday Margy! We're growing older together and I couldn't be happier! I love you--always.

Dan

Variations on a Theme...

I've been doing more paper crafting lately, snipping and layering away.  On my last post, I showed the little springtime ATC I made for a swap.  I liked that pretty floral illustration a lot, so I decided to use it again for a friend's birthday card, since it was already scanned and in my photoshop files.  Here's the new card:

 

This is the ATC I had done earlier:

 

 The flowers were originally on the cover of a seed catalog from the early 1900's. 

Such a great, vivid illustration!

For my friend's card, I photoshop'ed her photo in the midst of the bouquet. I tried an old-school crafty decoupage trick from long ago: I printed out another copy of the flowers, fussy-cut the two tulips and layered them on top, elevating them with a little foam lift for dimension.

So a little later, another friend was retiring....and since I really liked the summer-y look of the yellow dots with the colorful flowers, I kept with that theme for this card, too, using different flowers:

I did the 3-D layer trick again with the large roses and the butterfly wings:

 

My husband's birthday is coming up.....somehow I think one more variation 

on this flowery theme 

may be a wee bit too 'girly' for his birthday card!