Don't say I didn't warn you!! :)
This is also my second post today - for my Let's Get Sketchy post please scroll down.
Okay, now that the business part of this post is out of the way, let's get on to the fun part. Today on Practical Scrappers we are featuring layouts and cards about Grandparents. My children are very fortunate to have 2 sets of loving, available and invested grandparents - Grandma and Grandpa Day (babysit when we need them, run "Granny Camp" for a week in the summer, shower gifts for no reason other than the fact that they can) and Ammee and Poppa (a.k.a. Grandma and Grandpa Graham - babysitting providers, scooter fixers, chaos instigators {there are 14 grandkids on that side} and all around fun people to be around). I could have done any number of layouts celebrating my kids relationship with either set of these wonderful people. But I chose to talk about the Grandparents that left us before they were born. Grandma and Grandpa Campbell. MY parents.
I am using this Sketch Inspiration sketch (#335).
Clearly I deviated a bit!! :) I mostly used the sketch to place my background papers and then to help me know where to place my other items, but the number and orientation etc is different. But hey, that's what a sketch is for, right? Give you a general starting place for you to make your own!
Let's talk details now.
I've titled it "The Ones You'll Never Know". The large black letters started off as plain wood veneer but I felt I needed something dark up there so I sprayed them with my Warm Calico Mister Huey. The little hearts I've scattered around the layout were also from this pack of letters and I coloured them Mister Huey's also.
I created a pocket to hold my journalling and the order of service from their funeral. On top of the pocket I attached a couple of old passport photos I found in a box of papers I have (I hope to create albums for my brother and myself ... one day ...) The date is the date the photos were taken and I woke up this morning thinking it was confusing and maybe people would think that was the day they died so I have added the words "passport photos taken" above the date sticker on my layout.
Here are the items in the pocket. The journalling reads (get your tissues ready!):
"Grandma and Grandpa Campbell ... or Mum and Dad as I knew them. These are the grandparents my 3 beautiful, loving, fun, wonderful daughters will never know. They'll never know how Mum used to huck caramels at Campbell's Quiz winners. They'll never know that Dad used to fall asleep in the oddest places - like the bus home from work or the church pew (bent over his bible so people thought he was reading scripture!) They'll never hear my Dad read Arabian Nights or wait forever for him to get the "perfect picture". They'll never get to taste my Mum's cooking. So much lost. So much to tell them!"
The large picture is from their wedding and - before you freak out - is NOT an original. I took the original and scanned it before printing off the copy I used here.
Tucked down at the bottom and barely visible (on purpose) is this little tag.
Well, there you have it. This was truly a labour of love for me. The journalling is probably the most personal journalling I've ever written for a layout and I freely admit to shedding a few tears. Mum and Dad went to be with Our Lord on April 27th 1988 and not a day has gone by since then that I haven't missed them. My Graham parents are SO wonderful and I love them deeply but boy do I wish these two were still around! I know my Dad would LOVE the fact that Marley stays up way past her bedtime reading and can finish books like Alice in Wonderland in 2 days!! She's 8 by the way!! I know my Mum would have some deep wisdom about Paige and calm my heart about her future. And I know the two of them would love to laugh at Christine's antics - probably all the while telling me she is a chip off the old block and I was just as 'troublesome' when I was her age. One day I'm sure we'll get to do all that but for now I can only tell my girls as much as I remember in an attempt to keep them from being forgotten.
Thanks for coming on this journey with me today. Please be sure to check out all the other beautiful projects on the Practical Scrappers blog - no tissues required!
Oh wow, this is a tear jerker, Alison! Your parents sure were cute, and it makes me so sad to think that your daughters will miss out on knowing them, but this is a great tribute page (hopefully the first of many?) and they will definitely appreciate what you're doing, if not now, then definitely as they get older. I just got my mom to write down some stories from her childhood, just because she's got some funny ones and nobody can tell them as good as the person who remembers it first hand - who knows what will happen in the future? Jason's mom is getting very bad with her memory (like REALLY, REALLY BAD) but that's what kind of prompted me to say, "Mom, write me something now!" Anyway, sorry, didn't really mean to ramble, but this is so touching, I absolutely LOVE that you did it! Happy labour/BBQ day, hugs, Rox.
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