Retirement Card

Last week I was asked to come up with invitations to my Pastor's Retirement Party. While he is not retiring from the ministry or pastorship, (which I thank God for that!) he is retiring from his secular job with the local power company after over 20 years of faithful service there. Being in a small community, it was common to see him driving around the area in the company truck, which I have tried to depict using Stampin' Up!'s "Loads of Love" truck.
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I began by printing out the wording for the invitation on full sized card stock and cutting that cardstock down to 8x5.25". Then I scored at 4" and creased the cards well to stay flat while I was stamping the truck image with Black Stazon. My dear husband was kind enough to do the detail striping down the sides of the truck...the first of his contributions on this project. Next, I cut a clear plastic mask that covered the truck while I tried brayering. The mask worked well and will remain in the set case for ever more, but the sky was "liney and then I remembered I had a sponge brayer I had never tried, and suddenly, the sky brightened! :)
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Once again I cut another clear plastic image to sponge the grass...and added stamped tufts of grass for texture. Again, I stamped the truck on a clear template and cut out the tires, and sponged them with Basic Grey. (Are you tired of working on these yet? Uh-huh!) At this point, we gave the truck chrome (silver on the Painty-Pen) hub caps, fenders and headlights. Oh yes and Red Gel pen on the tail lights. The door decal had to be traced around a very small oval, and printed UPPCO (Upper Peninsula Power Company) and then hand cut out that oval and glued on.
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Then came the trick of sponging on the dirt road holding a masking piece over the sky and the and a masking piece over the grass, and another over the truck. Also to be done was the stamp out the "celebrates" and cut them by hand (of course!) and glue them onto the the back of the truck...and hey! what are these little spots on the sky???? Okay, we'll stamp some smiley faces on the snow blossom punch and call it a sun...stick them on the spots, and add them where it looks good if there isn't any spots...oh yeah, and then glue all the green quarter sheets tot he cards! Is that all? Now, how many do we have to do???
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What started out to be a simple invitation, turned into a regular marathon to get nearly 60 of these done before my family left Friday morning on a 5 day trip to help out my husband's brother and sister-in-law make the adjustment from hospital to home after my sister-in-law had a stroke as a result of brain surgery, 2 days before Thanksgiving.
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She, Nancy, is doing amazingly well, and although she has alot of PT and work to do, she's a fighter and will do well. God has been very merciful to Nancy, and she has more ability, in spite of the severity of her stroke that even the doctors had hopes for, and a patient husband that would die trying to help her the best he can. I cooked up a bunch of meals ahead and went grocery shopping with my brother-in-law to help him figure out how to work in this area of the house-chores. My husband helped with hand-rails and other aids to help mobility within their home. She needs to do "laps" around the staircase (rooms go around in a way that you can go in a circle) Steve is going to encourage/bribe her with lattes. No, things will not likely ever be the same as they were, but life is still good and God is awesome!

C-ya later!