I Wish for Peace

A beautiful soul in our family has just died after a brief but aggressive fight with pancreatic cancer. I needed to do something to remember him by and just loved this photo that had been shared on Facebook.  I wish for peace is meant in many ways, I wish for peace for Olly, peace in the hearts of all that loved him, though it may take a while for a true peace to be there as the grief is still fresh. Doing this layout helped me a lot and it was great to have time to remember fun conversations and great stories about my brother in law. He was my youngest's girls Godfather, they had a special bond with a shared interest in art, and he was both the girls favorite uncle, he will be deeply missed.

This month we were challenged to add handmade flowers to our layouts. I chose to add two Bitty Blossoms from my favorite Spellbinder dies. I added pearls to the center of both and placed them in with my other flowers.

I also used two amazing pieces of chipboard from UmWow Studios. I absolutely love this one with the hands and it perfectly suits this layout. The papers, stamps and die cuts are from the 7 Dots Cold Country paper, just beautiful!! Finally, I used the filmstrips and tags of Venice from Darkroom Door, as Olly loved travelling and his job was as a filmographer, again they just worked perfectly for this layout. The words are also from Darkroom Door and from 7 Dots Studio and I used many to describe him and things he loved to do. In the top of this closeup photo here you can also see a flair of a dandelion, again to me a perfect symbolism of how brief and fragile life is.

A sad layout, but one I am glad I did.

I did this layout as part of the DT for the Berry71Bleu April Challenge.

As tomorrow is the last day of this challenge, if you have a layout this month with a handmade flower in it,

 I encourage you to enter it and share it with us! There are some amazing prizes to be won!!!

This month we challenge you to create a project using handmade flowers !

There must be at least ONE homemade flower on your project.

I would also love to enter this in a few challenges myself.  I would love to join the Once Upon a Sketch challenge for this month. I used this sketch:

The theme for this month is an event that has changed my life. Right now we are still reeling from the ridiculously short battle my brother in law had with pancreatic cancer. He turned 39 on February 27 and I don't think his symptoms had started yet. He fought the bravest battle I have ever witnessed in the space of the five weeks that the cancer quickly ravaged his body but not his good spirit and his quirky and fun sense of humor. Watching his fight, seeing his friends and family he loved around him, has made me once again remember to take every day as a gift. None of us know what will happen tomorrow, so I squeeze my kids a little tighter and am grateful for a great husband and comfortable and happy life.  There are two tags on this layout and I have journalled these thoughts here. I have also taped the Prayer of the Faithful that I read during the funeral mass to the back, as well as an amazing story from Carl Sagan about Earth and our lives here on this small blue speck...a reading that Olly requested for his funeral. I will never forget my kind and funny brother in law and this layout has truly helped me process what has happened.

I would also love to enter this for the Scrap Around the World Challenge. I used the colors from the mood board, the butterflies and the script font for the large part of the title from this month's challenge. I also took the advice of the mood board and just let this layout develop from my emotions and how I wanted to remember Olly, I wanted things that represented him and reminded me of him.

My final entry for this layout is for the 7 Dots challenge, April Showers bring May flowers. We had showers of tears in April for sure and I have used a raindrop mask and drips of mist symbolizing tears and showers, then handmade flowers and lots of others for my May flowers. I hope that after our sadness we will be able to bloom again in our hearts. I know it is going to take some time though.

Thank you so much for taking the time to look at this layout.
It is the most special one I have done in a long time and I am glad I have it here to remind me of him!