June 2011 Heritage Challenge - A Man's Influence

In the United States, we honor our father's the 3rd Sunday in June.  For most families this extends to grandfathers, uncles and other male relatives too. If you would like to know who celebrates it this month with the Americans and when other countries honor their father's, there is a list at Wikipedia.

The Bible is filled with Scriptures about training children and honoring one's parents.  The whole book of Proverbs, considered one of the "Wisdom Books" is dedicating to passing righteous wisdom down from Solomon to his son.  God planned for man to have a great positive impact on his family.

So, in honor of Father's Day in my country and in honor of my male ancestors who worked hard in the building and forming of this country, this month our heritage challenge will focus on "A Man's Influence". You can find all this information in the challenge forums under June 2011 Heritage Challenge. Please leave me a message there and please post your layout in the Heritage Challenge Gallery.

Now, don't be shy!  This isn't difficult and it may even dovetail with a creative gift plan you have for that special man in your life.  It seems some people think 'heritage' and get an immediate block, feel they need to scrap Victorian styled or just feel overwhelmed.  These challenges are to help you journal and share your heritage one page at a time so jump right in!

I'll start with something simple.  Two years ago we had just bought our new home and I was working on Eva Lindquist's CT.  When I saw her word art, I immediately thought of my Husband.  The word art and collection of photographs told the story without me having to journal much.  If you have difficulty journaling, word art can be a great place to start. (Layout Credits)

Begin thinking about what makes your guy special. How has he influenced you? What characteristics or achievements do you admire? What do others have to say about him?  You can journal with just the Who, What, When, Why, Where and How, but it will be much more interesting if you share more.  Make lists, but then when you get the facts down, read them over as if you were a stranger reading about this gentleman.  What questions would you have about him?  What more would you want to know?  Please don't leave the memories locked in your mind - share them!

Here is another example of how you can get the point across with your photos and word art. This layout by Tanteva brought tears to my eyes because the photo really told the story and the word art continued it.  Eva should hang this on her wall!

These last two are examples of what I call "heritage in the making".  They are not what we consider heritage now... but they will be for our children.

When covering someone from the past, you may want to consider journaling more.  Perhaps you will even want to do a whole book about one person.  Even if you just highlight them in one page, you can still journal and keep your page artistic.

This layout was posted by SparkysGirl2 and though she never met this man, she was able to write quite a bit about him and feature photos from his naval career.

Shereen shared about her Papa and his praying for Seoul Korea during his military tour there in the 1950s. She even included some of his writing.

Father is one of my layouts from my Grandmother's Life Book.  I briefly summarized who her father was on one side and her mother on the other.  The layout is pink because it is in my Grandma's book and pink was her favorite color!

Maybe you've looked at all these and thought, "I don't have a Dad" or "My father caused so much pain."  My heart goes out to you because I do understand that pain.  When I was searching through the galleries, I found this layout from Vicky Day.  Now, she wasn't writing about having a difficult relationship with her father, so I don't want to misrepresent her in that way.  However, her layout echoed to me the lesson I so early had to learn - Father Knows Best.  Even if it does not seem like it, our Heavenly Father loves us and is watching over us at all times. She beautifully shared that in this layout.

So, here are the details:

1. Scrap a page about a man of influence in your life, including journaling about *why* he has been influential OR scrap an overview of a male ancestor, including as much information as you can about him.

2. Post in the Challenge Forum.

3. Post your layout in the Challenge Gallery.

4. Receive your posting bonus, His Story - Father's Day Word Art

You can see more previews of the word art in the store.

If you're looking for ideas for masculine kits, the word art coordinates with my His Story - Family Tree Kit.  The kit even includes a quick page to get you started:

To help you out I did a search in the store for other kit ideas:

Masculine

Male

Man (this one had the most)

Father

Dad

New

Heritage

Thank you for joining us.  I hope you will have fun.  If you have any questions, you can always PM me in the forum or gallery, my user name is forgetmenots.

Happy Scrapping