Mind Wide Open Challenge - Serendipitous – if you will…

I received the email from Gail announcing she had posted the image for her September Mind Wide Open Challenge. I read her message and looked at the image quickly. I thought to myself, I’m not going to participate. But I didn’t delete it from my mailbox. I just was not in a mood to create anything. I was sad, depressed, in mourning, trying to cope with the sudden death of my little sister Judy. We had just celebrated her 60^th birthday in June. I won’t go into all the details of my sister’s health but she was constantly in pain. She wanted to do crafts and scrapbooking and she bought lots of embellishments and other crafting supplies over the years. Sadly, she barely created anything. After she passed away her daughters gave my other little sister, Jo, and I boxes of Judy’s craft supplies and fabrics. I brought them home and added them to my supply stash. 
Then on Wednesday while checking my email I looked at Gail’s image again and I thought about my sister, about all the things she didn’t get to create, and then I thought okay - let’s play.  I pulled the image into my Photoshop program. Something reminded me of the vintage set of alphabet flash cards I recently found at the Graphics Fairy (thanks Karen). I digitally merged and blended the alphabet letter ‘F’ flash card with its daisy flower image into Gail’s image and added the word ‘flower’. I kept thinking about my sister. I printed out the image and decided I would decorate the cover of a Dollar Tree Store composition book. I pulled out one of the boxes containing some of Judy’s supplies. I found the resin daisy flowers, the Rickrack, and the vine stickers she had purchased. I arranged and re-arranged the pieces, adding buttons, Stickles, more trim, and decorative papers to the front and back cover of the composition book. I printed another copy of the flash card, cut out the daisy flower, added a little color and glued it over the daisy on the image. Then I did some research for the poem on Gail’s image and found that the words are part of an old hymn.  I was stunned at first realizing what the words in the hymn actually meant. The second verse cinched it for me that I needed to participate in this challenge, and I knew it was all coming together. 
I took a few photos of the completed journal but I wasn’t happy with the way the pictures looked. A day later another box in my art supply area caught my eye. It was another box from my sister. I opened it and found it contained lots of packs with journaling words and letters. I was drawn to create the word ‘shine.’ The journal was complete, I took one more photo.

There are several versions to the hymn and the author is unknown to the best of my knowledge.  Here are the words I wrote inside the first page of the journal. 

“Is it raining, little flower?

Oh be glad of rain!

Too much sun would wither thee;

Soon ‘twill shine again.

Though the sky is black, ‘tis true,

Yet behind it shines the blue."

"Art thou weary tender heart?

Oh be glad of pain;

Sweetest things in sorrow grow.

As the flow’rs in rain.

God is watching, thou’lt have sun,

When the clouds their work have done."

Call it serendipity if you will. There is one more thing about the journal. My sister's oldest daughter's favorite flower is the daisy. I know who we made the journal for.

Thanks Gail!