DIY Mother’s Day Card (free printable)

This week on Facebook, my mom posted a photo of her mother and wrote, “My mom may be a little crazy, but that’s what makes her the BEST MOM!!!” The same is true of my mother. She’s a little crazy (let’s be honest, sometimes she’s a LOT crazy), but she sure can be a lot of fun. Her name is Sherry, but her alias is “Sharia Shriver” (Maria’s Shriver’s long-lost cousin). It doesn’t matter what it is, Sharia can turn just about anything (and I mean ANYTHING) into a full-blown news story. Just give her a microphone (a water bottle, hairbrush, fork, spoon, tiki torch, etc. will do) and a camera man–and prepare for drama and laughs. To say she’s entertaining is an understatement.

She’s also a devoted Christian who gets up early everyday, reads her bible and journals her thoughts about the scripture. Her collection of journals, diaries, poems, etc is HUGE. There’s enough material for MANY, MANY books. She takes credit for my writing gene. In my childhood autograph book, she wrote a short little poem about me that ended in these two lines, “She writes like her Ma, And draws like her Pa.” God gave me a double dose of creativity from two amazing parents and for that, I’m grateful.

I could go on and on about my mother’s gifts. She’s an excellent cook who rarely follows a recipe. She just wings it and it almost always turns out great. She’s a talented worship leader who is also learning to play guitar. She’s steadfast in her beliefs. She genuinely cares about people and their eternity–she wants to be sure she’ll be seeing them in Heaven. She’s got the gift of gab and can ignite a conversation with anyone. She’s a born leader who inspires others. She’s a hard worker who doesn’t know the meaning of the word “rest”. She also loves to decorate, craft and SHOP. Boy, can she shop. She’s a loving, caring grandmother to her seven grandchildren. She’s competitive, spirited and full of sass. In a nutshell, that’s my mom. She has given me no shortage of wonderful memories.

Since Mother’s Day is just a few days away, I thought I’d share a free printable for a Mother’s Day card. Last year, I took an online class called Script School. It was a crash course in learning to brush script with sumi brushes and gouache paint. If you’re interested in learning this technique, I highly recommend Kal Barteski’s course, which is complete with a detailed supply list, lessons, exercises, demo videos and more. I’ll warn you, it’s harder than it looks, but it can also be relaxing and cathartic. I practiced painting the quote on this card about a million times before I finally threw in the towel and settled on this one. I created it in black paint, then scanned it in and added color. I hope you like it!

To make the card:

1. Load your printer with an 8.5″ x 11″ (letter size) sheet of white (or a light color) card stock paper.
2. Open the Mother’s Day Card PDF.
3. Print page 1 only. If you would like to print the inside of the card as well, place the printed paper back into the printer in such a way that will cause the printer to print on the opposite side. For personal ink jet printers, this generally means inserting the paper face-up in the same direction it came out. Then print page 2 only.
4. Fold the paper in half and crease well along the fold to create a 5.5″ x 8.5″ card.

To all the mothers out there, I hope your Mother’s Day is full of love. xoxo