Sympathy card and a Tuesday Tale

You know that feeling when you open a Christmas card and your heart sinks? That happened to me last week when we received a card from a friend I haven't seen in a lot of years, although we still exchange cards and our news at Christmas. Her husband sadly died in August so I made this to send with a little note inside:

I used:

- 5" x 5" square white card stock

- deep lavender backing paper from the snippets folder, punched round using a Martha Stewart 'Punch Around the Page' set

- sentiment by SU, from the 'Sincere Salutations' set, stamped in Pearlescent Lavender and punched out using one of my favourite SU punches

- flowers bought in New Mexico, made by Martha Stewart - called 'Hydrangea' - they come already to use in sets of three flowers for corners with the little pearls already added

- teeny self-adhesive pearls in the other two corners

The tale begins when Elisma (isn't that a pretty name) and I met at work. She got me involved with a local charity raising funds for a CARE village in Ponteland where I lived - the village is still going strong housing 42 adult residents with learning disabilities (mostly Downs). We ran Summer garden parties, themed dinner dances and lots of other events over the years - raising an amazing amount of money to fund the village and even build new cottages.

We also discovered a love of 'playing at shops' - raided our lofts and set ourselves up doing car boot sales. This was followed by us trolling round local jumble sales and auctions so we could 'up cycle' things such as glassware, jewellery and so on. We did have a lot of fun and the sun always seemed to shine whenever we did our monthly boot sales.

Sadly, Elisma and her husband Malcolm moved away down to Lowestoft but not before her very dry husband caught me out good an' proper. I rang their house to check up on something (probably when to meet for a car boot or jumble sale) - the phone was picked up and when I asked for Elisma the solemn answer from a chap was 'Sorry, there's no one here right now'. And, to my eternal shame, I squeaked 'OK, I'll try later' - and hung up!!! I then wandered away from the phone, the light finally dawned and a huge pair of asses ears sprouted from my head...............of course, when I rang straight back, Malcolm could hardly speak for laughing and neither could I. What a wag and very much missed by my friend and no doubt many other people.

Di
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