For my handsome man…

Eight years ago on this very day, I promised, for all the days of my life, to love and honour the man that was to – seconds later – become my husband.

And right here, right now, I am going to honour (and possibly even slightly embarrass….!) this love of my life, this thief of my heart, this architect of the two most precious little girls on earth – the most amazing husband, wonderful father and truly the best life partner I could ever have been blessed with.

Here are a couple of shots from our wedding day – a casual little Sunday morning affair that took place on Rottnest Island, 18km off the coast of Western Australia.  It pretty much turned into a wedding weekend in fact, with lots of our family and friends taking advantage of the opportunity to stay over and chill out “Rotto” style for a day or two

It’s hard to believe that eight years has gone by since then.

Looking back, it’s also hard to believe that I ever pulled off that hair colour.  Oh to have the guts (and time and money…) to maintain a highlighted strawberry-blondish “do” again.

But I digress…

Here is a little montage of one of the things that I MOST love about my handsome man – the father that he is to our girls

He has always played an absolutely equal part in the care and upbringing of our poppets and does THE most amazing job of it.  He is such a loving and positive influence in all of our lives and one of the things that I love about that is that our girls will always have this as an example of what a caring and good man is like and will settle for nothing less in their own lives.

Of course that’s assuming that they will ever be allowed to have boyfriends or go out on dates, which of course they won’t, so scratch that.

Moving on….

(*kidding* of course, but Tim always says that the first time a boy comes knocking at the door to take out one of his daughters, he will answer the door naked except for his black belt.  So in all likelihood, the minute that little snippet of news gets out, chances are they will never be asked out anyway…)

Last night while Tim was at work and the girls were asleep, I sat down to create what I hoped would be a fitting anniversary card for this fella who has added so much to my life.

Then I got up again as I had no single idea of where to start!

What I ended up with started out as the tiniest seed of an idea that I got increasingly excited about as I managed to make my vision an unexpected reality!

Here is the end result of my labour of love and stamp-a-ma-jigging…

I first decided on a colour scheme, then pulled out all of the occasion-appropriate wording stamps that I own to create my own Designer Series Paper.

I used no less than 11 stamp sets here and the trickiest part once all of the stamping was over was figuring out which boxes they all needed to go back into…

It’s a large statement, but this may just be my favourite card ever, based partly on the person it’s for and partly because I just LOVE it when something that starts as a tiny possibility turns into a reality that far exceeds any initial expectations!

The card itself is double the size of a regular one – simply a base of an A4 sheet folded in half and then all the layers, well, layered on top!  There is quite a bit of sponging and distressing in my attempt to bloke-ify it a little.  Possibly I could have bloke-ified it a bit more by omitting the Pink Pirouette, but I wanted a bit of contrast for the hearts…

So I mentioned that I used 11 stamp sets…  I thought it would be fun to offer a little prize to the first person that correctly names them all.  Actually just ten of them, as the small heart is from Cheep Talk but shown incorrectly in the catalogue as belonging to Good Friend, so that would be a bit unfair!

So ten stamp sets that the wording stamps are taken from….  Who’s up for the challenge?!  Here’s a little clue – nine of them are current and just one is retired (last year)

The prize will be… something from my craft room here.

Can you tell this is an impromptu little giveaway…?  I promise it will be something worthwhile

Oh and anybody that infers that it’s because I don’t have the inclination to write out the names and include all the images of the stamp sets that I have used is disqualified (…and correct…. )

Happy Anniversary Baby!

ETA:  I should have known this would happen – I missed one!  There are actually 11 sets you’re looking for peeps (there are 12 used in total).  Ready, set, GO!!!

“Happy 8th Anniversary to Us!”
Stamps: You tell me!
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Kraft, Whisper White, Parisian Breeze DSP
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Sahara Sand, Baja Breeze, Pink Pirouette
Accessories: Vintage Brads, Chocolate Chip wide stitched grosgrain ribbon, Stampin’ Spongers, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Button Bouquet, Linen Thread, 1″ Circle Punch, Horizontal Slot Punch, Stamp-a-ma-jig

Tags: Buttons, Embellishments, Life & Family, Punches, Ribbon, Stampin' Up!, Stamping

Tagged as: Buttons, Embellishments, Life & Family, Punches, Ribbon, Stampin' Up!, Stamping