Good Friends are for Keeps…

 

Good afternoon, my friends!

I hope your weekend was wonderful—the first weekend of fall—can you believe it?!

I’ve been continuing my little family chipboard album I started last week…can’t tell you how much fun I’m having with this!

It’s a Maya Road large tag-shaped album that Crafty Secrets is now selling…and I love it!

Here’s what I worked on this weekend…

This is the cover for my album…I love this beautiful vintage image from Crafty Secrets’ new “Vintage Photos” Creative Scraps—just gorgeous!

I just layered a couple of beautiful papers from Graphic 45, distressed the edges with Tea Dye and Vintage Photo Distress Inks, vintage mother-of-pearl buttons, a bit of sparkle, of course…

…some lovely paper flowers…they were a light pink already, and I spritzed them with a bit of “Cherub Pink” Glimmer Mist, which made them fabulous!

Next:  My grandmother Pauline and an enormous fish…

This one makes me very happy!  I have lots of old family photos, as you know, and Sandy (owner of Crafty Secrets’) liked this one so much, she wanted to include it in the new “Vintage Photos” Creative Scraps!

Back in 1908, my grandmother—still a single girl of 20—went by train from Northern Arizona to the coast of California with her mother, Ida, who was having lots of health problems….

While there, they stayed with relatives, and on her mother’s good days, Pauline felt free to spend time at the ocean…she loved the spray of the waves, the feel of the sand…so different than her high desert home!

It was while there that this wonderful, staged photo was taken…such a common thing to do in those days…Tourist spots would often have “sets” ready made that you would just step into and have your photo taken.

I included her handwritten description of where and when the photo was taken on my page…

…I also added some “sand” (clear, chunky German glass glitter), shells and pearls at the bottom…

…and covered the whole page with both “Iridescent Gold” and “Gold” Glimmer Mist.

Next: Good Friends…

Pauline was a school teacher in a small school in her little Arizona town…teaching drama in the same school was her very good friend, Mary West…

Here’s a very newly married Mary and her husband, Don F. Riggs.  I don’t have a single, young photo of Mary, so this was as close as I could get…

…and Pauline, about the same time…

They stayed wonderful friends all through the years, no matter where life took them.  Interestingly, their families both ended up in that same small town of Snowflake, Arizona later in life…

…they lived very near each other, and spent much time together, along with their families. 

The photo of the two women in my project is  another photo of mine that Sandy wanted to include in Crafty Secrets’ Creative Scraps…this one is in the new “Girlfriends” set…the photo is of Mary and Pauline, sharing a taste of a new recipe, perhaps, on the steps of Pauline’s house.

The two friends dreamed that one day, Pauline’s oldest boy, Rudger, and Mary’s oldest girl, LaPriel, would fall in love and marry, uniting their families…

…which they did…in 1934…a dream come true for two good friends.

Here they are again in the early 1940’s…two friends (along with their husbands) united as grandmothers of these two little boys…my father, Clayn, on the right, and his older brother, Grant.

These two dear friends stayed very close to each other throughout their lives.  I was able to get to know them both when I was a little girl before they passed away…Mary first, in 1967, and Pauline followed, less than a year later in 1968…friends to the end…

 

I hope the rest of your day is just wonderful…enjoy time with your family and friends…and who knows?  They could be one and the same one day…

I’ll be back Wednesday with something new…and with the winner of my anniversary giveaway!

See you then!

Julie

LiveJournal Tags: Crafty Secrets,family album,Mary West Riggs,Pauline Udall Smith,friends