An ATC Challenge In Memory of Alisa

This past month, we lost a friend here at Studio Calico. Alisa Henry was taken far too young, leaving two little daughters, a husband, and parents and family. I didn't know Alisa very well, I'm sorry to admit, so when I heard the sad news, I started going through Alisa's comments on the message board, hoping to catch a glimpse of who she was. While reading her comments, the following thought came to me:

Alisa's girls need to know this side of their mom.

Alisa made so many positive and encouraging comments on the boards, she had a lot of wisdom to share with us. I thought if we passed even a small portion of what she said, her family would be blessed to have access to this part of her life. But how to do that led to my next thought.

Here's the challenge:

Make an ATC card, they are small (2.5 x 3.5 inches), they can hold little nuggets of information, they incorporate the hobby she loved, they are a great way to share the bits of Alisa that we knew to her family. If you are anything like me, you'll get inspired by this art form and want to make more. There are only a few steps that must be followed to make this work:

1. Go to the SEARCH tool on the Message Board page and type in Alisa's screen name "lagsforlisa." This will allow you to see all the comments she made on the message boards, there are 31 pages to be exact.



2. Read through the comments, find something that speaks to you. There are a lot of ones that won't work, but there are many that will work perfectly for this challenge.

3. Pick ONE quote to use and before you start working on your ATC, come post which one you've chosen, so we don't have overlaps. For example, I went to page 30 and found a comment on gardening that she made.


Posted: Fri, Mar 28 2008 at 10:07PM on True Life Stories > Gardening?

I love gardening, too. We are doing our backyard this spring with beds, veggie garden, and little pond. [1.]Don’t forget to plant some things for hummingbirds. These little jewels are awesome, they love things with long tubular flower shapes, especially red. I like to grow Salvia greggii, comes in lots of colors. [2.]Also, I order plants online from Bluestone Perennials, they have a search function you can put in your criteria and gives you a whole list that might fit the bill for you situation. And a one year plant guarantee. Also, call your local master gardeners at the county extension office. They can usually provide a plant list, and planting dates for veggies. [3.]And stop by a plant sale at your local arboretum, talk about get the fever (think reveal night!) And stroll around any yard tours, or just around your neighborhood and see what grows. I like to try what I see, that is why scraplifting came so easily to me! lol.

-
Alisa

From that one comment, I was able to create 3 cards. You only have to make one, but once I got started, I was hooked and kept going. But you should only work on ONE at a time.

4. I'll have a thread going on the message board that you can post your choice to. Give me the date, the board it was posted on, and the thread title. Mine would have been this:

Fri, Mar 28 2008 at 10:07PM on True Life Stories > Gardening?


I'll keep a master list running as to which quotes are being worked on and when they are completed. If you want to do more than one, feel free, but please only after you've finished your current one.

5. When you're done, post them to the gallery and link them to the thread so we can see your beautiful work created for Alisa's family.

6. Send your finished cards to:

Studio Calico
513 East 10th Ave
Bowling Green, KY 42101

7. We'd like to have all cards sent by the 30th of June. This should be more than enough time to put one (or two) together. I'll be encouraging you along the way!

8. If you need examples, back in October of 2008, Jenn Olson and Nik Harper did a week's worth of blogging on this very subject. They had some great links to get you going on ideas. I did mine just a bit different because it's not really a trading card, it's more of a memory card. I think it's OK to bend the rules on this one... Don't forget to read the comments on this post as well, there's a lot of information there as well.

Here are the cards that I made. This concept coincides nicely with my newfound interest in using up what you have. Two of the three cards were made mainly with things I had on my bulletin board or sitting out on my desk. I tried one digitally to see how quickly that would go.





credits: cardstock, Cosmo Cricket, Sassafras Lass, and Studio Calico; tag, Tim Holtz; patterned paper, Studio Calico; rub ons, Chatterbox (wing to wing) and Jenni Bowlin (alpha); paper tape, Anna Griffin; felt flower, American Crafts; gem brad, Making Memories; other, image of hummingbird from the web and Starbucks Pick of the Week iTunes card.

For this one, I created it all digitally and then printed it out. It took me less than an hour to put together.

Digital version created in CS3:



Paper version:


credits: paper, Katie Pertiet Spot Dots; floss heart, Katie Pertiet Flossy Hearts; tag, Katie Pertiet Lil' Bit Tags; stitched X, Katie Pertiet Li'l Bit Tags; (all from Designer Digitals) flower brush, hawksmont Flowers (free from the internet); font, Prissy Frat Boys (free from the internet).






credits: cardstock, Chatterbox; flower, Making Memories; buttons, Foofala; stamp, Catseye Press; ink, Tsukineko; frame, American Crafts; ribbon, Piggy Tales; exopy tag, EK Success; font, Rough Typewriter (from the internet); other, thread and string.

After our first tragic loss of Aleida Franklin, and seeing the outpouring of love for her, it broke my heart to lose yet another friend of our community. An album was created for Aleida's family, organized by a member of our community, judi. I made a page that focused on an interaction I'd had with Aleida that really impressed me. Her desire to make sure she hadn't offended me really stuck with me. I didn't have an interaction like that with Alisa, but I hope that by doing this, you'll be able to share something that stuck with you about Alisa. Please join us in this challenge to give Alisa's family a memory only we can share.