Best friends

In one week my son leaves for Guam.

For the next two years, he’ll be working in the hospital there as a corpsman for the U.S. Navy.

He’s excited. Living on a tropical island with surfing, diving and swimming has been his dream since he was little.

I am happy for him, but I am sad that he will be on the other side of the world. I just hate having him so far away for so long and I am missing him before he even leaves.

But, I am not the only one who will be missing him. His best friend, Kevin, who also joined the Navy, will be missing him, too.

The two have been friends since sixth grade. We have taken Kevin on trips with us and my son has called Kevin’s mother, “Mom,” for years.

Although Kevin joined the Navy first, Christopher left first. I worried they would be forever separated as they went to different schools on different bases.

Fortunately it worked out so that Kevin was able to attend Christopher’s graduation from boot camp and that Christopher was able to visit the last weekend before Kevin left for boot camp. The boys were together again when Kevin graduated from boot camp.

These photos, some taken by me and some by Kevin’s mom, are priceless to me as they show the boys together during those special moments and I wanted to scrap them for our latest Scrap Wars challenge at Scrap Tales.

Our challenge was to create our own background paper using inks, stamps, masks or whatever we wanted. We also had to include a flower made from either ribbon or by layering paper.

I used Alcohol Ink on a piece of acetate to create a watery sort of background. After putting ink on the pad, I used it on the edges. As the ink began to dry, I worked it in the middle of the page, so the middle is much more speckled than border.

For the title and arrows, I used Grungeboard from Tim Holtz, painted in Ranger’s Paint Dabbers.

The compass and words were part of die cut from The Paper Loft. I inked them with Distress Ink.

The journaling block is the new Sizzix embossing plate by Tim Holtz. Again, I inked it a bit to add contrast.

The hardest part was the flower. I wasn’t sure how to incorporate a flower into the page without making it feminine. Finally, I decided on the Sizzix/Tim Holtz flower die. I thought the varied edges would make it less girly. I used both cardstock and a military printed paper from Karen Foster to cut the flowers and layered them with dimensional foam.

For a finishing touch, I added a strip of  Tim Holtz’s new tissue ribbon — I love how the blue alcohol ink shows through the tape — and an anchor sticker from Reminisce.