May the Lord Bless you.

I really need to move on from sympathy now but as I find myself surrounded in sympathy cards I seem to be getting inspiration from them which in turn is showing in my card making, I find this quite strange as normally I would find these the hardest cards of them all to make.

The cross is stamped directly onto the base card in a brown walnut distress ink then a couple of pearls added the sentiment is stamped onto one of the smallest label Nestabilities and then cut out the next size label in a brown card stock both stamps are from Every Day Blessing by PTI.

I stamped the next image by Clarity stamps onto a larger sized label shape and again mounted this on top of a larger one in the brown card stock.

I brought it all together with a chocolate silk ribbon.

Azalea's - Floral Craft

Although my head is still filled with blancmange I thought I would get back to my Floral Craft and make a couple of Azalea's, they are made using the large balloon punch and colouring the shapes with water colours then adhering them to a strip of paper and rolloing the paper up, then the odd tweek here and there and then adding leaves.

A simple stamped vine on the base card and a couple of nestabilities label shapes and finished with a ribbon.

A close up view of the flowers

Oh Holy Night

Getting back to my craft, I stamped the backround on the card using the a stamp from the silent night stamp set by PTI with a olive green ink, I cut a couple of label nestibilities and stamped the top one with a neol stamp and coloured the pear with H2O's, then sponged the bottom lable with the olive ink along with a spellbinders ribbon slide tag.

Layered it all together and added the olive ribbon to the tag and tied it around the card using a knot.

New Remember When series 5 & 6

I managed a Day at work Thursday and I have to say they have been fantastic allowing me time to sort myself out.

The big news is La Pashe is launching series 5 & 6 on Monday 10th of November at 6pm on Create & Craft Chanel 671 and Ideal World Chanel 644.

This is quite an exciting launch as it is what you the customers have asked for. I can't give too much away except that it will give use a helping hand with our hard to make for cards.

All of the prep work and card making for ths has been done by the design Team and working collegue Danielle who works very hard behind scenes to keep La Pashe and Imag=e=nation running smoothly.

Without this help I wouldn't have been ble to be ready for the launch date due to recent happenings at home so I would like to thank everyone for chipping in and coming to my rescue.

the other exciting news is there is more flippin' Men Decoupage on their way both Jim (artist and myself have been beavering away trying to get more of these finished, So watch out for these very soon.

Dads Funeral

I'm not sure where to start with this so please forgive me if I forget something.
It was a truly beautiful sight, the horse drawn hearse pulled up at Mam and Dads house and yes I know we are supposed to stay inside untill we are ready to leave but I couldn't.
I felt an overwhelming warm feeling of pride for my Dad when I saw it, I just had to open the door.
Dad would have been elated.

This is a picture of the brass name plate, we had a horse and Jockey etched as he loved a wee flutter.

I don't know how I got through but I stood up in church and read out a tribute to my Dad which I had wrote.

I am adding it here so you can know a little bit more about the Man he was.

My Dad

My Dad, known to his friends and family as Jack made me who I am
today, he gave me love and inspiration in all that I have ever
done.

I often found myself saying that Dad had no TACT he was a
plain talker who was quick to say what he thought and if you were easily
offended then you shouldn’t visit him.
Yet this straight talking would really
make me giggle as I found it so funny, none of it was said with malice and in
fact if Dad thought for one moment that he had offended or hurt anyone he would
be upset.
He had a heart the size of a bin lid and a true Pitman’s humour.

In Dads later years he would get
so frustrated at not being able to manage to do the things that once came easy
to him yet this wouldn’t stop him trying.

I remember visiting only
to find him doing some woodwork in the front living room whilst Mam was resting
upstairs.
I gasped in disbelief at the wood shavings as far as the eye could
see and saying “you will be in trouble when Mam see’s this”
His reply was
simple, saying “but it’s freezing
outside”

Another time Dad brought something inside
that he needed to cut. Carefully using a Stanley knife he cut not only the job
that he was working on but he also cut through the living room
carpet.
“Once again in trouble with Mam”
But for all of
this we loved him and he always got away with it, luckily my Mam always saw the
funny side.

I am going to miss my Dad dreadfully, the laughs the
tears and the larger than life character who was not only a Father but also a
dear friend.

So through all of my tears I will still smile when I
think of him and feel proud that I was a big part in his life.

Dilemma

Well tomorrow 5th November 2008 at 11:30 am will be the day of Dads funeral.

As some of you know Dads trade at the pit (coal mine) was a blacksmith, he also enjoyed having a wee flutter on the horses.

We thought it would be fitting to have a horse drawn carriage hearse to take dad to church, now here is my dilemma, I would love to have a photograph of this as I think it should be remembered, I also think it will be quite beautiful, I'm not alone as my Mam and Brother both feel the same, would it be wrong to add it to my blog or would it upset anyone? I just don't know. All I know is I feel like I should preserve the memory.

So Much to do

I have so much to do an so little time to do it in.I have 100 Funeral Order of Service to make and 100 Bookmarks with prayer and ribbons to make for Dads Funeral.

The Prayer Mam choose is perfect and truly reflect what Dad would have wanted.

I've added it below, I hope this doesn't upset anyone but knowing "me" if I was reading this I would want to know what the prayer was.

The Bookmarks will be mounted onto Black Card with a small border showing between the prayer and the card and will have a black silk ribbon tied at the top.


Click on the image to enlarge

Strange Choice of card

Don't ask me why I made this as I don't really know, I sat down in my craft room and started looking for an image to stamp with and this was the first one I came to, the stamp s made by Stampsmith, I used the new Labels Nestabilities to cut the shapes then stamped the image on the top one and sponged the edges with black ink.

I then used Everyday Blessings by Papertrey Ink to stamp the cross and the sentiment on the card.

I then shoved this to the back of my desk as I new it was a strange choice of cards to make. I suppose grief makes us do things without knowing it. It was heading for the bin and then on after thought I finshed the card and thought I should add it to here, after all many have gone through what I am now and I'm sure they have done similar to me.