Who am I and what inspires me...

I have a very personal and special post to share today.
It's a culmination of my crafting history and what inspires me to craft.
From a very early age I utilised my love of crafting and loved nothing more than creating cards, gifts and keepsakes for family and friends.
Keepsakes that still hold special memories and are treasured and loved in the same way as they were given, from the heart and with the great pleasure I had in creating them.
The early creations may well have been assembled with crepe paper, cotton wool balls, empty toilet rolls and such like but this is where it all started.
My family have always supported my love of creativity and I have also enjoyed the immense learning curve as I developed my craft and eventually turned it into my career.
In more recent years I have learnt and developed techniques from those who inspire me, there are so so many talented people out there!
My passion for craft and these techniques have all come together for this project, it is decorated to tell the story of building the family tree. Putting pieces of the puzzle together bit by bit and it was my gift to my daughter for her 30th Birthday our "Family Tree"
Discovering who we are and unlocking the information over time, the wings represent those we have lost and my dad being in the Royal Air Force, each element has it's place and together tells the story.
This is what I like to do, capture stories and recreate them in my art.
I wanted the colour to be fitting for this keepsake, rich and decadent and it had to be in Jennifer's favourite colour of purple.
Imagination Crafts  Starlights and Alchemy Waxes worked just perfectly.
I commissioned a friend of mine, Krisha, who is a genealogist and runs her own business -
Ancestor Finder  to research our family history.
Wow! The discoveries are fascinating and it's very addictive!
It has also been a very emotional journey as it started back last year before mum passed away so the timing was even more poignant.
Krisha put in hours of research and I have to thank her so very much for doing such an amazing job of discovering "Who we are as a family"
The history that has unfolded for us is really special and will be treasured always.
We will never take for granted the poverty and hard work, time in the workhouse, the tragedy, WW1 respect and recognition and we will always treasure the memories, happiness and love.
Today I share an insight into these very special memories all contained in a folder I created along with the hours of research printed off, the family tree in book form, which I assembled, along with family photo's.
Have you researched your family tree, I'd love to know...
Thank you so much for visiting
Much love and hugs xKx