Birthday Album Cover Assembly for my Mom

These are components for a birthday album for my Mom...and I better get a move-on getting it designed!

My Mother will turn 80 soon. For over a year we have been assembling her party. She wanted a tea at her Women's Club. She decided the preparations became too stressful, so she cancelled her party!

My husband, little sister, and I have made plans for a small party, in the mountains, for her. Since January, we have been gathering birthday cards from her family and friends and they will be assembled into a birthday album. It is a surprise and so far, so good.

Mom was one of ten children of poor, dirt farmers, raised in Texas. Her father died when she was four, leaving her Mother with 10 mouths to feed. At times the family  lived in a chicken coop on a neighboring farm.

Married to the love of her life at seventeen, by the time she was twenty-six, she was raising two sets of twins.

At twenty-nine, she was diagnosed with cancer and the prognosis looked like Dad might be raising four young children alone; while he struggled building his new business. Mom battled cancer again in her seventies. Her faith is  remarkable.

She is a giving person and the photo of her in the kitchen with her apron on, defines her the best, although I know she would have preferred that I use a picture of her all "dressed up". She has three freezers in her home for all her baking. Dad vows that she cooks for all of Lubbock, Texas. Each day will find her delivering a cake or cookies, or a meal to someone that is sick or has recently been widowed. 

When I visit them in Texas, before I leave for the airport, she will have a note on the refrigerator for me to not forget my lunch. She will have packed chocolate chip cookies, a pimento cheese sandwich, a new package of tissues and a package of gum, for the trip to the airport.  Her thoughtfulness is amazing.

So will try to design her birthday album with a bit of elegance in hopes of "overcoming" the red apron.

I've assembled the "Roman Gold" doupioni for the album cover, as the silk has enough red tones to balance that apron. I'm using a  plastic binder for the album. We are putting each card into a clear sleeve, so she can pull the cards out to read them. The binder will be padded with batting. The rayon flowers surrounding her photo, will be dyed with my rayon dyes in shades of magenta and gold. I dyed a small rayon motif to check the color intensity against the doupioni. The rayon flowers are cut from the bodice of a wedding gown. When the thrift store has wedding gowns at half-price, I  purchase the ones with rayon bodices, take the gowns apart and store the rayon appliques in plastic bags.  The photo will be trimmed into an oval shape and the rayon appliques will be stitched around the photo.  Buds and roses made out of the 1/2" bias-cut silk ribbon will be stitched on top of the rayon motifs and the piece will be finished with Swarovski crystals.  The inside of the binder will be lined with the floral upholstery fabric featured at the top of this photo and the inside edges will be covered with braid.