Grandmas Love Cards

Grandmas love receiving cards in the mail. This is not to say that opening your mailbox to find a lovely personal message from someone close to you isn't something enjoyed by everyone, but it seems as though Grandmas are especially fond of the gesture, and can appreciate the level of thoughtfulness put into such a thing. Cards are not to be forgotten. Send a card to your Grandma on her birthday; kid, it's awful important.

Speaking of Grandmas, mine is very special. My Grandma Mary has travelled by plane from a small town in Ontario, all the way to Calgary, an incredible 80 times since my family moved out west in the winter of 1997. She has been with us to celebrate 48 birthdays, 16 Christmas dinners, and 16 Easter egg hunts. There is no one else I know who is as consistent, eccentric, stubborn, and downright generous as my Grandma Mary, and yet I neglected to send her a birthday card last week. Thinking about this makes me feel practically sick with guilt. She is now 73 years old and without a birthday card from her eldest granddaughter; unacceptable.

Today, I am going to try to resolve this sickening display of neglect by crafting my Grandma the most wonderful birthday card ever. Since she has just recently flown in for my birthday (which we'll celebrate this weekend), I'll be able to give it to her in person, along with a hug and a "how was the flight"? Surely, things could be worse.

Supplies: Cardstock in various colours (though I think I'll be aiming towards an "autumn" theme with oranges and reds and browns), a gluestick, a scalpel knife to be used with my "Olfa Rotary Mat" for precision cutting, scissors, a selection of ink and felt pens, a ruler, and while I haven't decided which one yet, a photograph.

I decided that since I would probably be creating some autumn leaves for this card that I ought to stick to greens and blues for the background colours. I've always been drawn that pea-soup shade of green; it reminds me of when Grandma once knit me a sweater and my eight year old self decided that "fart green" fit the description perfectly.

Something worth noting before I continue is that after years of flying back and forth, Grandma Mary has finally sold her house and will soon be making her final trip west to move in with my mother. Will this make my mother crazier than she already is? Most likely. Are we all still excited and insisting it'll be great? Absolutely.

So, with that in mind, I've decided to carry on with the idea of togetherness, and how grateful I am to finally have my family together in one city (us girls, anyway).

Using my scalpel and rotary mat, I carefully cut out each letter in the word "together", pasted what was left over on the front with my glue stick, and then used the same technique to create a tree. My vision for this card involves falling leaves. Once the tree is in place, I'll begin the tedious process of cutting out a collection of little leaves; all done in the colours of fall that my Grandmother enjoys each year in Eastern Canada.

I've lived in Calgary for over half of my life now, but one thing I'll always miss from my memories of living in Ontario are the long indian summers, all laden with red and gold and umber.

Cutting out and gluing on all the little leaves ended up to be a slow, but rewarding endeavour. Autumn has always been my favourite season, so I had no trouble at all slipping into a daydream about afternoons spent jumping into leaves and evenings enjoyed bundled up in my favourite sweater. Time flies when your mind is elsewhere! Before I knew it, I was ready to start working on the inside of the card.

To illustrate my Grandma's decision to move out west, I decided to decorate the inner pages of the card with the image of our Rocky Mountains. Once again, I painstakingly carved out each shape in greys and blues and secured them into their place on the page.

Using the same lettering technique as I did on the front page, I spelled out "is my FAVOURITE place to be" to complete the card's final message. There really couldn't be anymore truth to this; being together with the people I care about truly is my favourite place to be.

With several years of card making experience under my proverbial belt, I knew to slow down and carefully write out my Grandma's birthday message. We wouldn't want to deal with any unsightly spelling errors, now would we? There will be no white-out, not today.

The thing about Grandmas, and especially Grandmas who are moving to a new city, is that they literally have everything you could ever imagine getting them as a gift, and have likely already started the process of getting rid of these things through a series of garage sales and Salvation Army visits. There's nothing I could possibly purchase for my Grandma, and so now she typically gets photographs.

Grandma Mary loves photographs, and if there's one thing my Grandma Mary and I have in common, it's that we both enjoy taking photographs. To the left is an example of us photographing each other; she sent me the photo of myself in the mail, and I was able to show her the photo I took of her via Facebook. With decades between us, we've still never seemed to have any trouble communicating. You'll notice the impressive size of my Grandma's hands as she grips the ever present "disposable" camera.

Truthfully, I could ramble off a number of similarities between myself and my mum's mum, but this shared interest in photography has been the most relevant similarity, due to the fact that between the two of us, we now have an extensive photographic archive of family get-togethers spanning the past 20 years. One year we got her a digital camera for Christmas. She's been using disposables ever since.

I ended up choosing and framing a photo of our family that I already had up on display in my own home. This photo was taken during Christmas of last year, and will always serve as a reminder of how she made the journey west so many times to be with us.

The interesting thing about choosing the frame for the photo, was that I found myself now also considering my Mother's taste, of course being sensitive to the fact that now anything my Grandma receives as a gift going forward will end up being displayed in my Mother's house.

There are times when I catch myself reflecting on our own mortality, and the circle of life, and the importance of revelling in one another's company while we still have the opportunity to do so. Perhaps it's something about getting older, or perhaps it's just a heightened appreciation for what I have. Regardless, I'm looking forward to sharing this gift with my Grandma over a cup of coffee and a long anticipated visit on the couch. And next year, with us finally living in the same city as one another, I won't even have to worry about mailing her birthday card on time.