today my mother retired.

today was my mother's last day as a first grade teacher. i'm not sure exactly how many years she taught (she took some time off to raise my brother and me) but she loved her job and was very sad to leave. she worked every day from at least 730 until 530 and loved (almost) every minute of it.

since she's so sad about leaving i wanted to do something nice for her (other than the gift certificate the family got her) so i picked up a bottle of wine. there's a joke in the family that when she's had a good day she has a glass of wine with 2 ice cubes in it, when it was a bad day 1 ice cube and when it was a HORRIBLE day she had no ice at all. so considering she no longer has to get up at 530 in the morning to go to school, i made her a very special label for her bottle of wine:

the label is made with crumpled decoracorative paper and rub-on letters.

and this is the card i made her:

it is made with various decorative paper, antique mother of pearl (on the front) and stamps.