Mother's Day: The Junebug Pendant

For the past month, I've been searching for the perfect Mother's Day gift for Leslie. In the past, we've celebrated Mother's and Father's Day with each other, because we're the parents of two very sweet cats and one crazy dog, but this is the first Mother's Day that we can celebrate as real, soon-to-be parents to a little human. Lucy June is due in the middle of next month, and Leslie has been pregnant like a champ for the last eight and a half months. I'm so proud of her for going through all this pregnancy stuff. It seems tough, but Leslie makes it look easy.

For her first Mother's Day, I wanted to find something special for her. After searching high and low, blowing past the typical fruit bouquets and diamond earrings, I found the perfect thing at the bottom of a jewelry display in a thrift store.
It's a copper pendant with a little beetle, or Junebug, on it. "Junebug" is Lucy June's unofficial nickname, so when I found this little guy, just last week, it felt a little serendipitous, and I knew that this would be Leslie's first Mother's Day gift.
I wanted to personalize it somehow, though, so I picked up a metal stamping kit and went to work. Metal stamping is pretty simple. Just take the letter, or number, you want to stamp, line it up, and give the end a few good whacks with a hammer. Copper is pretty malleable, so I had to hammer the pendant flat again when I was finished.
I'm giving Leslie the metal stamping kit, too, because I know she'll find some cool uses for it, like labeling all of our silverware, or writing poetry on all the doorknobs in the house.

We ended up finding a nice necklace to string it up on, and now she can always have her little Junebug close to her heart. Happy Mother's Day, Leslie. You've earned it.

LPM
&
LJM
2012