It’s been a big month emotionally for our household for a number of reasons, one event I would like to share the creative aspect of it with you here. This week I had to say good bye to a friend who was an inspiring lady after she lost a 5 year battle with leukaemia. She leaves behind her husband, young children, extended family, friends and more notably a legacy of being grateful and celebrating the everyday events of life with everyone that she encountered. She was always happy, positive, friendly and inclusive of everyone in everything she did, from playgroup where we first met, to school, P&C, work and social events, her loss is going to leave a void in a lot of peoples lives in many different ways as we all remember her for different things, but the one thing we are all grateful for is having spent time with her as she genuinely brought out the best in everyone.
To help celebrate her life I was asked to make some memorial seed packets containing sunflower seeds. I knew that we were talking about +200 packets here and that they needed to be customised with the appropriate name, dates and message so I instantly thought of My Digital Studio (MDS). There is a free 30 day trial for the program, but I have the full version which was a bargain at $24.95 and a godsend for this type of project. Now this digital design program and I are still coming to terms with each other and my work with it to date has been more functional than finesse, but with the help of the MDS support site I sat down on Sunday evening and came up with a few ideas and this was the result that the family were happy with.
Michelle’s favourite colour was purple, she also loved butterflies & elephants – I think I managed to incorporate all of those elements. The design was printed onto Whisper White card stock, layered onto Elegant Eggplant and then onto the white seed packet envelope, fortunately another friend helped with the assembly process of the envelopes. The back of the envelope was sealed with a full heart punch containing another MDS print out of a sentiment and little elephant, but this one I faux layered onto the Elegant Eggplant.
The images used were from Garden Whimsy, Together Forever, Simple Friendship & Baby Steps. I can see me doing these type of items for other events e.g. Christenings, weddings or fundraisers, so even in death she has inspired me to push past my hesitations and procrastinations in using MDS and opened up opportunities to share this type of project with others. Michelle was an amazing lady who I felt very privileged to have spent time with over the last 6 years, in Spring I will plant some of the sunflower seeds in out garden and I plan to post pictures of the sunflowers blooming later this year.
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