Playing with Paper and Glue for the Red White and Blue

First, I want to apologize to everyone who has left comments lately.  My computer's been giving me a fit for nearly a week now and it takes me forever just to get a post up.  Hopefully by tomorrow we might be back on track.  I appreciate all of you and your comments so much, it breaks my heart not to be able to let you know individually.  Danged computer, I barely even have any hair left. LOL.
I finally grew up and now I get to play with paper and glue.  So I  made this to hang in my MIL's nursing home room,to celebrate our nations 235 birthday!  I finally played with my Cricut too and made the little flowers and leaves.  I can't wait to do more with it.  Go America!!!

When I was little we had an old craft book that belonged to my sister Joni or maybe it was just the families.  It was the early 1960's but I'm sure the book was from the 50's.  I loved that book it was black and white but to me, it was the most interesting book we had.  I looked at that old tattered book all the time.  I know my mother would be saying not again as she saw me heading her way with that book.  I was forever asking her if we could do some of those projects.  The answer was always the same, maybe tomorrow.  I'm sure mama had no clue that it was so important to me and that I would grow up loving to craft.

Mama never did care much for crafting that was more fun than it was practical.  Mama wasn't old fashion by any means. She always was interested in learning more.  I still remember her taking a high school night class on accounting.  It wasn't something she needed to do, she was a stay at home mom, she just wanted to.  She worked when she was younger and even for a short while when she first married.  Mom loved to play bridge, crochet, do needlepoint, cross stitch, crochet and knit.  She had more patience and coordination than I did.  But oh' how Mama could sew.  She was a seamstress extroidinaire.  Again, not craft sewing but clothing.  She was so good at sewing tailored clothing.  Something she only did for her and her girls and maybe a friend or two.   She learned from her mother just as most girls did in the 30's when it was so important and so neccessary. Maybe that's why she didn't care for quilting like my grandma.  Maybe she had seen too much of that done out of neccesity.  But later she still took more classes to learn the finer art of tailored slit pockets and things of that sort.  She had a very Jaqueline Kennedy, (mom's name was even Jackie) or Chanel Coco sort of style.  Simple was more. 

I can remember Grandma occasionally sewing on her old treadle singer sewing machine. I'm so proud to be the owner of that old sewing machine of Grandma's now.  Mama had a singer too, which I learned to sew on.  Thank goodness it was an electric machine.  I've had several sewing machines since then and none have been as good as that one was.  And none have certainly lasted as long.  That was way back when they were American made and made to last and last.  Most items were made that way back then.  It only seemed practical to make a product that would stand the test of time.  Later as business dynamics changed.  Companies came to the conclusion, that for a business model, that may not be the most profitable plan.  And so started the long or short road to the throw away society.

I love America and to me America means the history of our ancestors.  The strength that it took for them to fight for such a young country, to believe totally in it's purpose through good times and bad.  To be proud to call America home in the worst of times.  Always banning together for the common good when it truly mattered.  For the great sacrafices that families endured in times of war and how they still continued to love and believe in this great country of ours.  A country built on freedom, liberty and justice for all. 

I'm sure every country believes they are doing whats best.  And it's citizens are proud and have undying love for their country but as an American I know that our forefathers left their homes and came to this unknown land to make a better life for future generations. 

I've seen our society go through a ME generation and I believe we're seeing what was reaped from that now.  If anything positive has come from the economic crisis our country has recently faced, it's the coming together again.  The equal suffering of the rich and poor.  Oh' there will always be ones who are still spending what we as middle class could never even concieve.  They bank accounts may have even taken a hit but it's not like their daily lives will ever feel it.  But for the most part neighbors are more empathatic of others because they have been touched in some way by this shift in money.  Maybe there's something to be grateful for in that.

Thank God I live in America, The Land of the Free!!!

Have a wonderful and safe holiday weekend. 

XOXO's....Tracy :)