I was first asked to do the card 3 days ago by a very good friend of mine. She asked me if i would make her a very special card and i of course said i would. She said she wanted it to be a Missing You card and again assumptions were made and i assumed it was for someone that had moved away or someone she doesn't see that often. Then she explain. She has a friend who 10 days after she passed her driving test and not long before her birthday was tragically killed in a traffic accident. The effect it has had on my friend is enormous as it would anyone. At that point i became aware of just how important this card would be. It had to capture everything about missing someone, the tragic loss of someone, the showing that the good times are remembered and they are loved. I was touched by the thought. I knew how important this would be for my friend and she chose me to make a card to be placed on her grave....By far this was probably the hardest thing i have ever had to do craft wise. It may seem pretty simple on hearing the idea, but i had to get this just right. My brief was it has to be Blue as that was her favourite colour. It had to be simple but express how much she was missed but also express how she is remembered in such a good light, no poems and inside had to be blank for her to write her own words...I was completely stumped....The hardest thing for me was trying to connect with another persons loss. Quite a few of my friends knew the young girl that had died so i had already heard alot about her and the tragic circumstances in which she died, but how do you tap into someones own feelings of loosing someone. We've all lost or experience loss in all its different contexts, Losing a friend because you grow apart, losing a race when were at school, or losing a loved one to a old age, We've all experienced it at some point but we all deal with it differently, We all have different outlooks on it and opinions and that is why this card was the hardest thing so far. So i sat and drew a couple of ideas but nothing fitted so i started thinking about how i could signify every one's feelings of loss into card that would be suitable and i thought of a few little but important phrases that i could use along with the words "Missing you" then out of no where it came to me. Forget-Me Nots...They are blue and say everything that i couldn't express it was perfect.....so after an hour of toying with the phrases and the layout i got to work. I used a special pearl paper that was in an electric blue to back the wordings and i found a very simple picture of a Forget-Me-Not and mounted this onto self adhesive foam. I found the most perfect backing paper which had starts on and luckily was also blue!! It was all falling together and here it is the finish product.
I'm really pleased and luckily so was my friend. I think it says everything you can never find the words to say, i really hope it does it job, to show everyone who visits her grave just how special she was and also shows the young girl that she has a friend who is always thinking of her.
