It’s Memorial Day, a rainy one where I am so all of the events are moved indoors. I’m the person in my family who takes care of the flowers for the cemeteries each year. I make up two big pots of red, white, and blue flowers–one for my uncle John who died in battle in World War II and one for my dad who fought in five major battles during World War II and returned home after V-E Day. Dad died in 2022 at the age of 99, and it wasn’t until his 80s that he talked about the war at all. My sister had given him journals and pens one year at Christmas and asked him to start writing his stories down for us. That was when he dug out the photos and memorabilia (including a box of K rations and the five battle stars for his uniform). We now have a book of his stories and photos, about 250 bound pages.
The flowers for this card come from three flower basket die sets: FLOWER BASKET BOUQUET 94888, WOVEN FLOWER BASKET 94941, and ARCHED FLOWER BASKET 94951.
To make this card, I began with a top-fold A2 note card and added a piece of paper from LAGOON SP1010 that I cut 4 X 5 1/4. I then used the CONFETTI HOT FOIL PLATE (which is no longer in the catalog, but I couldn’t find the background plate I was looking for) to cut a piece of white card stock that I had trimmed to 3 3/4 X 5. I then attached it to the front of the note card because I wanted the blue paper to show through a punctured plate.
I then die cut all of the flowers and leaves from the three flower basket die sets using a light weight watercolor paper. I colored them with Kuretake paints using a fine tipped brush. Once the flowers were dry I began adding them to the note card. This is when improvisation came into play as I did not have a plan for how I would arrange the flowers. I finished the card by adding one of the THANK YOU FOIL GREETINGS BLACK CIRCLE TABS ST009.
These are the materials I used:
On this Memorial Day, please remember our fallen soldiers. Wear a poppy, participate in a community celebration, or pause for one minute at 3 PM local time to observe the National Moment of Remembrance to reflect on the sacrifices made for peace and freedom.
Supplies
