An assortment of old rusted nuts and flathead nails, time-worn metal washers and knobs. Mismatched buttons. Costume jewelry with rhinestones missing. Earrings without matches, most without backs. A stack of old magazines and catalogs, some with pages torn out. A peculiar collection of odds and ends that most everyone would view as trash.

Except for Louise.

Louise sees the texture and shape of each piece, and sees in them the potential for art. For decades, Louise has been able to see potential in drab lumps of clay. A master potter, she turns those lumps into fantastic, hand-built vessels and finishes them with such deep, warm glazes they glow as if the fire remains.

Recently, though, Louise has been taken with the art of collage, combining everyday items into gift tags and bookmarks. Her work has a charming wistfulness about it, like she's combined jewelry and paper and an antique shop and a hardware store and your favorite page from a scrapbook all into one little thing.

The last time we visited them in Morgantown, she took me to her basement workshop and I watched as she put one together. She made it look so simple that later, back at home, I decided to try one myself.

I've seen preschool craft projects that looked more artistic.

Dog nose art on windows that seemed done with more skill.

It made me appreciate Louise's talent all the more. And made me grateful to have a mother-in-law I so genuinely like and unabashedly admire.

I'm guess I'm just lucky.

For as far back as I can remember, my own mother has been my best friend. Yeah, I know. Some folks frown on parents who attempt to be friends with their kids, but Mom wasn't that way. Her job as parent came first. The friend part evolved.

Every year, I schedule to be off work the first Friday in May so Mom and I can hit the neighborhood yard sales in Putnam County. It's been our tradition for at least 15 years. Throughout the year, we go to other sales and do other things together, but that day is my favorite. It's always just the two of us.

Well, it's just the two of us - plus all the people she stops to talk to. Mom has this way about her that makes everyone immediately comfortable and chatty. It's a skill - or a gift - that I'd love to acquire.

Kind of like how I'd like to acquire Louise's skill in the kitchen, where she can take any three ordinary ingredients and effortlessly combine them into an extraordinary meal.

And how I'd like to emulate my mother's ability to find humor in most every situation and her curiosity about darn near everything.

And have as extensive a vocabulary (and the ability to correctly use that vocabulary) the same way as Louise.

I want to combine the best of these two women so that I can be the kind of mom my daughter will have to work her tail off to copy.

I'm lucky to have them. I know that.

And I'm lucky they both know me well enough to understand that gift-wise this Mother's Day, this is pretty much all they'll be getting from me.

Karin Fuller can be reached via e-mail at karinful...@cnpapers.com. Her columns can be accessed online through her blog at thegazz.com.