Rememberers!

Good Wednesday to all my crafty friends!  I pray your mid week is well and you are being blessed! So many things going on right now with all my blog/Google+ friends that I am getting so excited about from swaps to shares to meeting new friends!  I love all the buzz and I can't wait to see what is in store these next few months!  It's a good time to be alive!  So many gifts and talents being brought forth and shared without reservation!  It's a good time to be thankful!

Today I want to share a card with you that I made for a friend of mine.  I am not a good enough artist to get paid for my work or for people to seek me out for my work (LOL, LOL!), but on occasion, friends that know I dabble in art will ask me to make them something.  This sweet colleague of mine has a friend who had a loved one pass and she wanted me to make her a card that she could give to her.  Of course I jumped at the chance because I love to play in my art closet, but also because I love to help another.

I don't "do cards" well.  I love to try and enjoy it for the most part, but it's not my first "love" like tags or my journals.  There are SO many wonderfully talented card makers that I love to follow either on their blog or on Google+ that I glean from, but let's just say we all have our areas where we excel more than another!! LOL  So, all that being said, I will share how I made this one today.

I have a stash of lovely card stock that I had cut down at our local print shop into 5x7 card size, for the occasional card and 3.5 x 3.5 "tile" size pieces for my Zentangle.  So I took a piece of the 5x7 and spritzed with water and then added Dylusions Bubblegum Pink and Cut Grass and then finished with Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Chartreuse.  I then took my favorite script stamp from Inkadinkado and stamped with Distress Peeled Paint on the background. I then took a wonderful stamp that I love from my Unity Stamp Layers of Life January kit and stamped on the background using Distress Peeled Paint as well.  I then distressed the sides with Peeled Paint and then followed up with Vintage Photo. I wasn't sure exactly where I was going from there, so I always use a spray fixative on my spray ink pieces so I am covered.  In the end, I didn't really do anything else to the base piece, but I was covered anyway! :)  I did adhere another piece of cardstock to the back because quite simply it was a mess, but also so she could write her own remarks on the back of the card.

I took a corrugated cardboard piece and painted it with my fave Silks Acrylic in Peridot (I could use that color on EVERYTHING..LOL).  I then took a page from an old dictionary with the words "remember or rememberer" on it and distressed the sides as well with Peeled Paint and Vintage Photo.  I put some plain black acrylic paint through one of my favorite stencils from Rebekah Meier called Specimen(TCW 454) from Crafters Workshop and then sprayed it as well.  I applied the book page to the cardboard with Aleene's and afterwards I tied some twine to the card and the put the cardboard on the card using pop dots.  I had a little embellishment form a Tim Holtz stash that had a butterfly on it that I simply added to the knot of twine.  I then just added the sentiment and shadowed with Faber-Castell Big Brush Pen in green.

When a loved one passes on it is always hard.  I believe that is why making memories is so important.  The memories you make are what sustains you, from an earthly point of view, when the loved one has gone on.  You can reflect and smile about the good times and remain thankful for the opportunity to have had that one in your life and thankful for the time you got to spend with them making those precious memories.

From a spiritual standpoint, God's Word tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:8 that being absent from this earthly body is to be present with the Lord!  We can rejoice at knowing that our loved one, although not here with us, is in God's presence!  What a far exceeding comfort to those left behind! Listen, Heaven is for eternity!  As Matthew Henry put it: "Death will strip us of the clothing of flesh, and all the comforts of life, as well as end all our troubles here below. But believing souls shall be clothed with garments of praise, with robes of righteousness and glory!" I don't know about you, BUT WHAT A GLORIOUS COMFORT that is to me!   It's a comfort knowing death has NO hold on me but that I will be made whole and in His presence for eternity! Glory!

You be comforted and blessed today as a rememberer, when you contemplate ETERNITY with a King!