Layout - he shall not grow old

I am a stories person.  Maybe that's why I've always been an avid reader.  Maybe that's why I retrained as a librarian after I had The Boy.  Maybe that's why I love family history.  I love telling stories, I love hearing stories, I love dreaming up stories.

I am collating family history stories for The Boy, so that one day he will appreciate all the events and emotions that shaped his world, our world and where he comes from.  I think it is so important - there are not many things that make me sadder than old photos that no one remembers or can identify the people in it.  I am very fortunate that my mum is faithfully digitising and labelling all the old photos she can get her hands on, and I am slowly scrapping them into an album.  I often journal on the back of my layouts - there's just no room sometimes, and other times I find out information after the layout is completed.  For the layout I'm about to share, I have written a very small amount of information straight on the layout, but will continue Thomas' story on the back, including the story his wife and how his loss impacted on her.

So here is my gg-grandfather, killed in action at the Battle of the Somme during the first day of fighting.  Nearly his whole battalion were wiped out on that day - you can see how I've marked the date in the second photo below:

Layout recipe:

Cardstock/paper: Merci, Echo Park, Bazzill, Whisper White (SU!), Kaszazz

Stamps: dots, postcard (small), postmark (all Kaszazz), Simply Sketched, Gorgeous Grunge (both SU!)

Inks: Distress inks (Walnut Stain, Aged Mahogany, Fired Brick)

Other: alphabet dies, tin hat from an Anzac pin purchased from the RSL a few years ago

Challenges:

Scrap the boys: Use a flower in a boy's layout

Stick it down: sketch challenge (below) 

Thanks for visiting!