Always in our Hearts, Forever in our memories

Well I have returned home. I am quite overwhelmed now with catching up and settling in after being gone for two weeks. As many of you know I have been away due to the death of my Grandfather. A man that has meant so much to me in my life. He has been my Father figure, my Grandfather, my councilor, my friend and my Hero. I loved him so much and still do.
My Grandfather Leland LeRoy Bechard born May 10th 1926, lost his battle with emphysema on Wed, April 8th. Just one month shy of his 83rd Birthday. My Grandmother and Uncle were with him. I received the call as I was departing from my driveway heading to the airport to see him. I was one of the lucky few though, since I was able to spend some time with him this past December before his health got really bad. Seeing the way he has had to live for the last 5 years of his life is enough to make anyone stop smoking. I will not go there though today I will leave that soap box for another time. I want to recount all the good times He and I have shared and his wonderful life.
My Grandfather's parting words to any of us who visited were always "Come back when you can't stay so long." Sarcastic... I know, but if you knew him, teasing and sarcastic comments were his way of showing you how much he loved you. The beautiful testaments to his life that were given at the funeral recalled many of these moments. The memories of how everything he touched with his loving hands were fixed and mended, be it a fiscal item or an emotional one.
From my earliest memory of him, I always remember him crafting or fixing something. He was always willing to teach you anything he knew at any age. I have helped him build many things, fix shingles on roof tops, helped him make picture frames, and change an alternator in my best friend Dana's car. He was a true crafts man and knew how to work the wood into anything. He made toys big and small for many of us grandkids all of them full of love.
My Grandfather served his country in the Navy. He signed up right after Pearl Harbor and was stationed in the Philippines. Though his time in service was short I believe he inspired many of us to do the same. My Uncle was a Marine, I have three cousins and a cousin-in-law who have served in the Army and I have married into USAF. After his return he married the love of his live my Grandmother Marcella. They had eight children, who have had 33 grand children who have had 32 Great Grandchildren and then also 3 Great Great Grandchildren.
Each one of us showed in our own special way how much we loved him. The boys built the beautiful natural wood casket. My Grandfather insisted that we would just bury him in a pine box and stick him in the ground. Honoring his wishes the Bechard men and boys began to build him his "Pine Box" though my Grandfather should have known better. We being Bechards, put our whole heart into our work and creativity. This beautiful box represents the lessons of handy work he gave us and the love we have fore him. The Girls worked on the lining of the box and took great care to pick out a quilt and to fold and arrange the design around the head of this coffin.
The lid to the casket was pronominal. It had a beautiful cross design on the top and was edged in multiple moldings. It was carefully cut to allow for an open casket and the funeral. The attention to detail was second to none. Even the time it took to search out the right pieces of wood with the best grain and color. Every inch of this was drenched with the love we all had for him. We were discussing at one point how much a custom made casket like this would cost and my cousin said "You cant put a price tag on all the love put into this one."
While they were adding the finishing touches my Mother and I were working on our own project for him. We decided to make a shadow box for the funeral and ultimately for my Grandmother. Some of the best photos we had on hand were used. Photos that were important times in his life. My cousin Luke took time one night to make the frame for this out of the scraps of the coffin. After the funeral there were a few more things added per my Grandmothers request. There was a childhood photo of him and the coin the Veterans of MO gave her at the funeral. A few more of Grandpa'isms were also added and His wedding ring. This project was created with coordinating products from Cosmo Cricket's Everafter line. This saved us some time and created a wonderful backdrop to all these handsome photos of my Grandfather.
Though many things were crafted in his memory. We also had relatives put his life in written words, they spoke about his life and told us stories. They reminded us of the wonderful memories we have of him. We also were blessed with a song played on the harp by my Uncle Armand's oldest daughter.
Over all as my Grandmother put it... this was the most beautiful funeral she had ever attended.
I want to thank everyone who made this trip possible for me; My Mother, my hubby, my Uncle Armand and Uncle Paul and their families, my Cousin Luke, my Aunt Joann, my Grandmother, my Mother-in-law, and my Sister-in-laws. Thank you all so much! I enjoyed seeing all of my family. It has been years since we were together like this.

Time off for unwanted reasons

Hello every one. I am just popping up a little post to let you all know what is going on in my life. This was pre-typed before I left and scheduled to be posted today. Right now I am in a little farm town in Missouri visiting with my family. Unfortunately this was not a vacation. I have headed back home to spend two weeks with my Grandparents and possibly the last few days of my Grandfather's life. He has not been well now for many many years and though he is a trooper and is stubborn enough to survive this long his emphysema had got the better of him. He is a strong, generous and kind soul and someone who was a major influence in my life. I will have a major part of my life missing when he is gone. I just have to remind myself he is in a better place and had a full and wonderful life. I am thanking you all in advance for your thoughts and prayers.

I should be returning home late on April 20th and I hope I will be up to getting back into the swing of things and start playing catch up within a day or so. I will be taking a bit of my scrapbooking stuff with me and I hope to get a few things done when I have some down time or ...lol.. when I just can't sleep. I am unsure of the schedule I will have once I arrive there and how much time I will have. I plan on taking beautiful nature walks with my mom and of course taking lots of photos. It will be time away from my babies for the most part... a first for me. Time to think and reflect. A time to be away from the city, daily routines and from the computer. A time to thank God for his gifts and his blessings to us and a time to mourn.

I will post when I return and update you all on my trip and what I learned, felt, experienced, saw, photographed and most of all ... pay tribute to a man who has influenced many, has served his country and has devoted his life to his family. May God bless you all in these next two weeks. May he bring peace to all of us who need it.

Sincerely,

The more I practice

Welcome to the Scrappiest Mondays. Liz and the gals over at The Scrappiest Blog have some great layouts for you from her sketch. I urge you to go check out that blog we have had on opening for a DT position so get over there and see what is about! We have a blast with her sketches every week! Deadline is April 13th.
I love the circle pages but I just have a hard time grasping my mind around them... as in... yes no square background paper... hmm... I just could not do it. So I added the background paper. These are some of my favorite pics of my son this last year during his T-Ball. Though I have hundreds...hehe. Yes I am a shutter bug. So at long last I broke out my sports goodies I have been hording and batted away at this layout for the last few days. I have been pretty busy and honestly down right uninspired. However, I got this done and I am happy with it. On to the Details.

Journaling Reads:
"Tristan Chase 2008, This is Tristan's second year! The Underdogs was the name of his team this year. He had so much fun."

Everything on this page is Cosmo Cricket accept the shrink plastic flowers and the letters that spell T-Ball.

Background:
The pin stripe yellow red and green paper is a double sided cardstock. The opposite side is the red with cream circles. So here is what I die. I cut a circle 11 1/2" around leaving 1/4" at the thinnest point on every side. I scalloped edged that circle with my decorative fiskars scissors. I then cut one more circle out of that one at 10" wide. Out of the 10" Circle I cut another one at 8 1/2". Once all of them were cut out I extremely distressed all the remaining edges inside and out of all t he circles accept the one I scalloped. So just to reiterate. The square 12x12 background paper, the red scalloped circle, the striped distressed circle and the interior red scalloped circle are all one piece of paper. I also cut a 12" circle out of a dark blue cardstock. I scalloped the edge of that also. I layered them up as you see and took the stripe and red circles and off centered them and anchored them to the bottom right.
Embellishments:
Both the glove and the ball were cut out of some of the provided embellishments from Cosmo Cricket. The star burst flower was made from a strip of CC paper folded in 1/4" accordion style and then the tips were trimmed to get the points. The plastic flowers were made from shrink plastic from Stampin' Up. I cut these with the cricut and used my stitch rub on (thanks Liz) around the edge. I then stamped the glove and mitt on each petal with a Stampin' Up stamp and stazon ink. I baked the flowers till they were shrunk and done then once they were cooled I added the center ribbon (Cosmo Cricket) and colored the balls in from the back with my white pain pen. The same ribbon I used with a sticker for the vertical lines that anchor the embellishments and the page from left to right. I added two little circular baseball related rub-ons and that is it.
Title:
The letters for the word T-Ball also are the shrink plastic. These were cut out of the white and then colored blue with a sharpie. The rest of it was a strip of the Cosmo Cricket paper pack, I cut in half and underlined the words "more" and "luckier" with the ball sticker strips from the same pack. Quick and easy. Sometimes the best way to work through a creative block is to work with a kit. I think this did the trick for me.

I would love to hear what you are working on this week. Please leave me a note and let me know. What is on your table??

From This Day Forward

Okay I finally broke down and forced myself to open my box of wedding photos and pic out one of the precious moments from that day and scrap it.... yes I put sticky glue all over the picture, front and back! I know some of you are gasping... Oh my!!! But to calm your nerves and mine... lol. I used a duplicate and I have the negatives. This is one reason I chose the photo I did. Now, the anxiety I had about beginning this project stems from the importance of this event. It was one of the happiest days of my life and I still seven years later tear up as I look through these pictures. I did not plan this but I finished this layout the morning of our seventh year anniversary. The date on the LO though is for our formal wedding in September not the Justice of the Peace one we had in March. Technically we have said our I Dos three times and I joke with my hubby that we should renew our vows in every state we live so we can collect the licenses... hehe if they would issue them to us that is. Lol. Well with out much further adieu here is the layout that begins a very large project for me and opens up my scrapbooking world to the elegant, romantic and sophisticated side instead of the playful, childlike youth side.

I created this for the monochromatic challenge for the Coordinates Collections March Madness Cyber Crop I attended this past weekend. I was shocked when I was done to realize I used only two.. yes TWO pieces of Cardstock. No patterned paper... just cardstock. I did lost of new techniques in this and I will be filling you in on those in a minute. The trick in my opinion with a monochromatic layout is to balance texture, patterns and dimension. I will go over these in a bit. Lets get started on the juicy details.

Background:
Ok this is an easy one... white cardstock... NEXT... just kidding I actually have to type techniques in the area this time. So here it goes. I took a thick cardstock scrap and cut a diamond out of this. I used it as a template to create the cream colored diamonds with Stampin Up Cream Craft ink. I did this about 1/2 of the page leaving the few diamonds in the center of the page to fade into the bottom right half. This is best seen right above the upper left corner of our wedding photo. After waiting for this to dry I took my piercing tool and my hole template and poked holes all along the edges of the diamonds. I threaded cream DMC floss through these holes and added one iridescent bead to each stitch. This took forever! Literally ... about 1 1/2 to two hours. But it looks great and it is so elegant.
Out of the cream cardstock I used the cricut to cut a 4" damask type pattern. I created this three times to back or mat the photo and to add a pattern and texture to the right side of the page. I took my white pen and added some doodling on top of this die cut patterns. I adhered them to the page.
Lastly on the main cardstock I took my Tim Holtz mask and used it along the bottom of this page. Once in place I used a cosmetic sponge (they are cheep at the dollar store) and applied versa mark ink around the mask. Once this step is complete I quickly removed the mask and sprinkled an iridescent glitter embossing powder. Heated it up with my handy dandy heating tool and wow... I love the result.
Embellishments:
Upper right: of the layout I have a journal box that reads "To have and to hold from this day forward." This is from a pre-printed wedding embellishment pack from Creative Memories... it was part of my old stash. I added some dry embossing onto this piece of paper and edged it in gold.. up.. you guessed it ... my gold Zig Painty Pen.. which by the way is dieing and drying out... I don't know what I am going to do. I think I got it from Stampin' Up, I cant find them in the stores. Sorry I just panicked there for a second...lol. Back to the subject. I embellished this box with an American Crafts chipboard shape I edged in gold also and some cricut die cuts from the Home Accent cartridge. The little heart with the DMC floss stitched around it is a punch from Martha Stewart's Valentines line. Last but not least.. a prima flower centered with a pearl, in the corner. I popped this up off the background cardstock due to the thickness of the beading. I used the foam squares to do so.
The Bottom Left: The main focus of this cluster is the large 4" damask pattern behind the embellishments. All of them by the way are the same as the upper left. This pattern is the same as the ones I used behind the photo, however it is cut out of white cardstock. I finished this one with spray adhesive and Stampin' Up's clear micro beads. I lifted this off the page with foam squares cut into little pieces due to the intricacy of this design.
Right side: The rhinestones are prima say it with crystals. After putting the photo on the page over the cream damask pattern I also added the shear ribbon along the right of the page. Placed the crystals over all that and embellished more along the right with the cream velvet ribbon, cardstock hearts and flowers. Some of the hearts are stamped with versa mark with a toile type design from Stampin' Up. I also added the frame embellishment with our wedding date in it. Again this was a cricut die cut shape cut in white cardstock and backed with the cream.

Thanks for looking and sharing in this huge step for my scrapping. I feel better knowing that I can scrap this event and I like the result.

Family Portrait

What a Terrific Tuesday! I have a some fun and wonderful news... Several things actually!

First off I am going to be a stinker and share with you all my new layout first... hehe. This is one I did this weekend over at Coordinates Collections March Madness Cyber Crop (MMCC). Which brings me to my first set of good news... I know I cant keep quiet... I said I would share later but this is exciting for me too. I won the grand prize for the crop and get two free kits from them!!! Got to love that. They are really a great bunch of ladies over there and if you have not checked their message boards yet, and want a relaxing and fun place to hang out and get inspired, you need to head on over. Background:
All these papers are from the Memory Stor. I love this bulk pack I got at COSTCO!!! Yes it is thick double sided cardstock and came in a great accordion file case. LOVE IT!
The main 12 x 12 is actually the blue denim style textured paper. I then layered the brown texture over that as a frame. I simply cut a 6 x 6 hole out of the center of the brown. Before adhering it to the blue I stitched around the edge in three colors and inked the edges with a brown ink. The only other layer of patterned paper is the stripe boarder. I created this with a boarder punch and four 1 1/4 " pieces of paper. I also trimmed these down to 11" long. I lined them up and mitered the corners. Inked the edges with the brown ink I used already and glued them together to create the frame. Before adhering it to the brown paper I laced the ribbon. Tied the ribbon in two corners. Then tacked it down to the background papers.
Embellishments:
These are simply leaves and flowers cut on coordinating cardstock with the cricut. I added a few sheer prima flowers behind the navy cardstock flowers. I took my gold marker and went to town doodling.
Title:
The word family was cut out of navy cardstock and traced with the gold Zig painty marker I love so much. The "portrait" was created with some stamps and coordinating patterned paper that was used to finish the grunge board plate.
Journaling:
I had wrote about the day and MeMaw taking the pics along the small brown strip ... it is in tone on tone ink pen so hard to see in this pic. But that is how I like my journaling... quietly there.

I have more from the crop I will add as the week goes on. Thanks to Coordinates Collections for such a fun weekend. I got my mom in CO to attend and we cyber cropped together over the internet and phone... hehe.

DRUM ROLL PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!

Here is the announcement of the day!!! You might have noticed a new little logo in the upper right hand corner of my blog. Last week I was approached by Marisol Jiminez from Scrapbook News and Review. She offered me a staff position on their wonderful online magazine. I needed to chat over the decision with my hubby who was out of town at the time. She let me see how well they work under the pressure of a deadline this weekend and I must say I was really impressed. Lots of long hard tireless hours put into every issue and yet they still remain pleasant and respectful to each other. As of yesterday when all of the dust had settled from the March Issue debut, I emailed her to let her know I was ready to accept the staff position.

There it is folks... I am officially a...

Staff Member for Scrapbook News and Review!!!

You can find me on the Message Boards!!!

You can be published too... check out what projects and layouts we are looking for in our April Issue!!!