Not Alone

Hi and welcome.  I'm here with a card for the latest sketch from the Freshly Made Sketches team where this week our sketch hostess is another of our new teamies, Jacquie Southas.

Here is Jacquie's fabulous sketch:

And here is my card:

Feel free to skip this next bit if you're only interested in how I made this card.  I don't often post personal stuff on my blog, but felt I needed to write something about what has happened.

As some of you know, I live in Christchurch, New Zealand.  And as most of you have probably heard Christchurch was the scene of a brutal terror attack on Friday 15 March.  As I write this on Sunday afternoon, 50 men, women and children who were praying at their mosques were killed by someone who believed he had the right to commit such a disgusting crime.  And to make matters worse, he live-streamed it while he was doing it.  

To say Christchurch and New Zealand are in shock is a gross under-statement.  Our little country with a population of 4 million never, ever expected something like this to happen to our citizens.  Our brave police force captured the offender very quickly afterwards and he is now going through the criminal system.  He is not a New Zealander, for which I am thankful in a perverse sort of way.    

The last couple of days we've had police helicopters flying overhead, which is both reassuring and frightening at the same time.  

Personally, I do not know anyone who was directly affected.  My youngest son (16) was caught up in a lockdown at his college which is in the central city and he didn't make it home until 8pm.  Fair to say, he got a big hug from me when he made it home.  He didn't open up much on Friday night about what it was like, but yesterday he told me that while he was in class on the ground floor of a building facing onto one of the main avenues in the city they were told to grab nothing but their cellphones and run upstairs.  They were kept in lockdown for 4 hours.  At times they were told they weren't allowed to talk in case the shooter was nearby.  The college's wifi had been turned off and information online was sketchy and some of it was downright untrue but at the time no-one knew that. Just after 6pm the lockdown was lifted and he could try and make his way home - after facing an in-depth inspection by police of himself, his car and his belongings.  Road closures meant what should have been a 15 minute trip home took nearly 2 hours.  

Over the last 2 days, I have found myself feeling more and more sombre.  I am not a religious person but people can hold whatever religious beliefs they wish, so long as those beliefs do not hurt anyone else.  How is this so hard for some people to understand?  If anyone is interested, this report is very well-written and puts a human face to the lost lives.

I have gotten very little done this weekend as I've been glued to news updates.  I did take some time to make my card for this week's sketch, even though I wasn't feeling the least bit crafty.  But as I worked through the creative process and ended up with this card, I thought it quite fitting that this was the final result.  

I looked through my dies for anything with a grid pattern that didn't cover the full card front and found this in my Blueprint collection.  I had to do some altering to get the 3x3 grid but I think it doesn't look too bad,  The centre heart is popped up on foam tape.  

For the sentiment, I wanted something simple but heartfelt.  I didn't want a sympathy message but a solidarity one and I think this one fitted the bill perfectly.

Thank you so much if you took the time to read this far.  Please check out the gorgeous cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Stamps:  Essential Sentiments (MFT)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black

Cardstock:  White, Audrey Blue, Smoke, Slate, Green Apple (SSS)

Dies:  Blueprints 20 (MFT)

Cheers

Karren