I've been given an award

Wow! Gez has given me this award:



Thank you, Gez, for the lovely things you said.

And these are the conditions:

1. The winner may put the logo on their blog.
2. Put a link to the person who sent you the award.
3. Nominate 5 blogs.
4. Put links to their blogs.
5. Leave a message for your nominees.

Gez said she found it easy to nominate - I'm not finding it quite so easy, not because I can't think of enough fab talented people to award, but because throughout my time of being involved in craft forums and visiting blogs, I've got to know so many extremely creative crafters.

In the end, I've selected five people who have become dear crafting friends, four of whom I've met in real life. I very much value their friendship and greatly admire their creativity.

Adele
Kathy
Lythan
Sue
Maddy

If you've never visited their blogs I urge you to do so - you're in for a treat - their crafting is outstanding.

I feel these five girls deserve this award much more than I do, but feel honoured that Gez chose me - thank you.

Having just visited the blogs of these friends, I've discovered that Kathy has already been given this award, which means I can choose someone else in addition - another very talented lady, whose crafting I greatly admire and who, over the years, has become a good crafting forum buddy:

Ellen

There are many more people I'd love to award, but I'll stick to the rules!!

Salt: comfort in suffering

For this time's Salt challenge, Kim has chosen the theme of 'comfort in suffering'. You can read what she's said here.

This is a very moving and emotive topic - and one that I thank Kim for at this particular time.

I chose to focus on thoughts about my dad, who suffered with dementia and died nearly five years ago, on mum's birthday. This time of the year is a particularly sad time of reflection - it would have been dad's birthday on 29 October and it's mum's birthday soon, but, nevertheless, it's also a time to reflect and be thankful for the way God sustained us through those difficult times. Dad had always been a very quiet, shy man. He had a strong faith, but wasn't one to say very much. However, when he was in the grips of dementia, it was just as if his inner being overflowed and expressed the depths of his faith, recalling hymans and scriptures and affirming his assurance in his Lord and that he would be going to heaven. I learned a lot from dad in this time, more than he could ever be aware.

For my LO I used a background of papermania 'ornate cluster' and added pieces of Be Blessed 'be thankful'.

I haven't been feeling well for a few days and so it was a bit of an effort to do this LO and I kept it simple, but am grateful to Kim for this topic. If you click on the image you will be able to read what I've written: