Happy Retirement

Four of our teachers and also my daughter-in-law's mother retired from teaching this year.  I had anticipated these retirments and ordered the balloon stamp and then totally forgot about it until this past week..... the last week of school.  So I scurried upstairs and got cracking on making one for each so I could add my personal note to them.  We do a group card from the staff, but there's usually just a smidge of room to write anything and some of these ladies deserved a little more than a smidge.

The background is some distress oxide ink sprayed with water and smeared on the watercolor paper to make a quick sky-like backgroud.  I stamped the bear and the balloons on regular cardstock first and then fussy cut them so I could pop them up on the front.  Inside there was plenty of room for my personal well-wishes.  

It was a very emotional send off for these ladies.  They are close to me in age and were very much my contemporaries of which there are few left in my school.  The art teacher was one of them and we did a little special secret tribute for her the next-to-the-last day.  The gym teacher had written up a request to parents to send him pictures of their kids with artwork that they had created in school with the art teacher who was retiring and I posted it on Facebook in the mom's group for him.  The outpouring was tremendous.   He put together a slide show and secretly got her family to come in and after the students left, we faked a meeting to get her to the gym where everyone was waiting.  I can tell you that there were very few dry eyes in the house.  What a wonderful way to say good bye and thank her for all the inspiration she gave everyone over the years.  They all will be greatly missed!