Mum - LizG

My mother was Elizabeth Gourlay, born 11th September 1962.

She was known to most as Liz, and to most of the Docrafts forum as LizG.

I was an only child and at the age of eleven, me and Mum discovered our mutual love of card making. It started off in Millers art store in Glasgow with a starter embossing tool box which included four heat it up embossing powders, heat gun, card blanks and some stamps and an ink pad.

We got it home and excitedly opened it and got to work....an obsession and passion was born that day for both of us.

For many years, my mother stuck to crafting and card making whereas I was always busy with school work and college so did not always manage to get the time to do it. However, I still had a growing craft stash funded by Mum and we went twice a year to the craft fayre in the SECC.

Mum quickly became well known on the forums and was an active member of the community participating in wallet swaps and give-aways every week. She sent cards out constantly and spent a small fortune on her postage costs!

She perfected her creations until she was completely happy with them and made some very intricate, delicate and simply astonishing cards.

Mum's craft stash took over the house! All of you will understand how much space all this stuff takes up, but it was what she loved doing, it brought her enjoyment.

My father, the wonderful husband that he is, supported Mum in her hobby. We both tried to get her to make some money out of it, charging for wedding stationery, but she was more than happy just doing it as a past-time.

She taught me how to do everything and always encouraged me in my abilities with craft. I was constantly comparing to her works of art and just didn't make it close.

I suppose we just had different styles.

Sadly, Mum passed away suddenly on the 13th July 2011.

I remember having to announce it to the DC forums. The response was overwhelming.

Over 200 sympathy cards all individually hand made specially for us and hand made trinkets, the one I still cherish was a hand made angel in a presentation box which I hang on the Christmas tree each year.
A dedication thread appeared which DC actually made a sticky and a permanent part of the forum.
Hundreds of responses through email, forum replies and cards. All of them saying the same thing.

"I am so shocked and saddened..."

"Your Mum was an inspiration to everyone with her gallery and advice, a huge part of the forum will be missing."

There was even a page for candles started that people could light online and add a message.....pages upon pages of tributes rolled in from around the world....

We are still astounded to this day at the influence she had and how many people she touched the lives of.

The day after Mum passed, I sat in front of the fire, with her craft stash that was in the livingroom, not touched since she had used it the previous day, and I made a stamped image from a series of stamps....a girl, looking sad, holding a cat in her arms.....I embossed the words "Where you are....there is love" in bright gold. I coloured it with promarkers....I used the brayer and big ink pads to make a coloured background on this A5 piece of card.....and I put her craft stuff away. Just the way she kept it.

Almost two years on....her craft stash still untouched.

I log onto DC and see that her posts are still there, her gallery is still there, her comments are still there...and I realise that she will never leave me and I knew that she would be screaming at me for letting her ink pads dry out...

So, I got to work....I organised it all.

I made my first card since the 14th July 2011.

It was hard...using her cuttlebug that had not been opened or used since she last put it away, sorting through her things, rearranging them....but I felt relaxed...and found many amusing mementos she left behind I think just for me...

There will always be a little bit of my Mum in every card I make, and that's comforting.

....and it still feels like she is here bossing me around and telling me how to do things!!

Look out for the labels Liz and Mum in my posts for anything funny I come across in her stash!

Click here to see my Mum's DC gallery!