Some new LO's to share

Hello all!
I'm back from a quick road trip last week to California via Salt Lake City and a stop in Phoenix. I'll share that story and some fun pictures next post. I uploaded some newer LO's to the CK gallery and thought I'd share them here with you also. These are some of the projects that I did for the HOF contest which ended in April. I had a good time making these and I tried to scrap some family heritage photos for this contest. One of the projects is a memory glass project that I have been working on for quite awhile also. I made 2 versions a few years back and gave one to each family in our little nutty orchard for Christmas. By the time I was done making all of those gifts I was just two tired to make some for my own family. I will eventually do one of every family member and turn them into a backlit wall hanging or possibly make a lit screen out of them. That's the plan anyhow. I'm going to post the directions and photos of how to make them in a few weeks. They're quite quick to make if just planing on one or two and it's a good way to learn how to solder. If you do stained glass, you already have the skills to make them. I didn't and had my girlfriend who makes stained glass windows teach me a few years back. I also finally felt it was time to complete a page on my father in law who passed away a few years back. I hope you enjoy the Layouts and have a great weekend, it's beautiful here today in Montana and I'm going to try and play some outside and take full advantage of the weather Sunday! Bye all!







JOURNALING READS:
Will, you loved spending some time this summer with your new pocket knife. As a mother, I was worried that your hand would slip and the day would turn into an emergency room visit. You did well though, and like every other boy growing up in the country, you were proud of your new knife and the responsibility of using it properly. You have yet to carve any figures or cut any fingers, but you sure seemed
to enjoy whittling away and peeling sticks that you had gathered.

JOURNALING READS:
I have always had a way with my hands. Where my head has let me suffer many times through problems in a fog of confusion, my hands have somehow always known the answers from birth. My hands have never let me down, even when they have ached and bleed from misuse.
As a child, they have softly connected to my horses mouth and joined us to move as one.
As a young lady, they have let me down trees and then helped me to nimbly create and shape my children's bed's.
As a woman, they have helped me to delicately handcraft fly fishing rods for the world's finest fishermen to treasure.
As an artist, they have let me master finishes on bronze sculptures and have carefully helped me carve representations' of wildlife that grace collector's homes as they pose silently and are forever frozen in flight.
As a mother, they have let me capture memories for my children, in scrapbooks and sketches to survive long beyond my own passing.
What I'm trying to say is that my hands are connected to my soul, they let me express myself when words fail to connect with my thoughts. I am passionate about working with them, they have always known what to do, and unlike words, they have never let me down.



JOURNALING READS:
I often wonder if I would have known what would happen in less than fourteen hours to you, if I would have spent the precious time to take this photo. I wonder if I should have asked you more about your life or if you felt that you could leave this world knowing that you had lived it fully and were content instead. Nearly three years have passed since the taking of this photograph, and I can still hear your voice as we chatted and sat comfortably on the porch. We sat and watched as your children hit golf balls out and over the pasture, they were laughing and kidding each other with all of the good natured chiding and verbal jousting that goes along with siblings that are close with each other. You were so happy to see all of your kids together finally, it seemed that cross country get togethers as families expanded were harder to come by over the last few years. How proud you were to watch a son, who had decided to take a life chance and make a ninety degree turn and go back to college just three years earlier to now graduate with high honors. We all came together to celebrate and to watch him proudly march across the football field the day before, we knew how important it was for him and we knew how important it was for you to see him. After all of the graduation festivities, we turned the day after into a family affair. All of your time raising three boys and a girl and watching them become fine parents with wonderful families made your heart swell with pride and you always told everyone just how proud you were, and you told me this as I took your photo. We sat and chatted about family, about how life has turned out for each and everyone of us. You never seemed to mind me randomly taking photos of you and didn't even miss a beat as we talked and I pointed the camera at you. You knew how important family history was to me and we shared that same love of recording events. Four years earlier you spent the summer with me going through your childhood photos and then helped me put together a family scrapbook complete with historical facts and memories. We held that common bond, and now Popa Al, I stare at this photo and wonder if I could look into my minds eye if I would have traded off the ten seconds of really listening to you in lieu of this photograph. I have waited for three years to put this down on paper and as I type this, my questions are slowly being answered as I pluck out each letter. I did know you, everything about you, and everything that was important in your life. You were about family. You were about getting together and reminiscing. You were about your children and in each and everyone of them I see you live on. Taking that ten seconds of your life was OK, you still tell us so much even though you're not physically here anymore. You talk though your children's lives, your morals live on through your children's choices, and your caring lives on as they parent your grandchildren. I hold a photograph of your likeness and as much as I treasure it, I know that I have so much more from you here and now today in my everyday life. I have you in your son, I see you in my children, and I still hear your stories in my heart. I love this photo Popa Al, but thanks for giving me so much more than the ten seconds to capture this photograph, thanks for giving me your living memories everyday in my life. You lived your life fully and I feel comfortable knowing that you were ready to leave the physical world, with nothing more to say and no regrets, for either one of us.