Hi Everybody, Kristin here to share a
Veterans Day inspired album.
~In Tribute to~ John Alphonse
Langlais
My Father In Law was a good man who
lived a Forrest Gump-esque life. Born in Quebec, he was the son of a single
mother who supported her children by working in the orphanages her children
lived in. His family immigrated to the East coast of Maine when he was a youth,
where he learned to love seafood. He was an amateur Hockey player, an Enforcer
in fact, yet an all around tender and funny guy who made everyone he met, laugh
and smile. He served in not one but two branches of the Armed Forces, the Army
and later the Marines becoming an American Citizen while serving. He was
in both World War II and the Korean war. Having traveled around the world, he
had many stories. Being stranded in France during World War II was a popular
one. He was lucky enough to fall back on his French and communicate with a
family willing to hide him until he was picked up by his Unit. Later in life he
settled on the West coast, near the orange groves in Orange, CA, where he
helped raise two amazing children. Through his life, he was lucky enough to be
married to two different extraordinary women. Even later in life, he was simply
Grandpa, who spoke French with a Maniac accent, pulled funny faces and told
funny stories. His life may seem to be made up of lots of "Two's" but
he was "One of a Kind". He is no longer with us but will live on in
our memories forever.
When he passed, we were given
priceless pictures from his time in the military and I knew the second I saw
them I wanted to create something for my husband to hold some of these
treasured moments.
I started with Kraft colored glassine envelopes by Advantus -
designed by Tim Holtz , under the Idea-ology Collection. I loved the look
of these, they already reminded me of the military and they had ready made
pockets for special treasures.
The
next step was cutting mat board pages and covers to match the size of
the envelopes. I distressed them with several colors of Distress stains, by
Ranger Ink-also designed by Tim Holtz and found some grunge style pattern
papers to line the covers and pages. Most of the paper I used was Tim Holtz or
7 Gypsies.
You can see in the above
picture, where the envelopes met the mat board. I glued the envelopes to the
mat board pages, added a few staples for looks only and then added some
pictures on top of the envelope flap to utilize the whole page. The envelopes then
created a tri-fold effect and were able to be used as pockets for mementos I
did not want to glue or get lost.
You can see in the lower right picture above, I added a faux dog
tag and a few other vintage inspired charms, put them on a chain and wound them
in the books center.
My Favorite page of the album, he is
the one in the middle, looking straight into the camera as all the others
around him carry on. I'm not sure to be honest if this was his going away
picture as he hoped on a train to go to boot camp, but it sure looks like it
could be. Regardless, my all time favorite picture ever.
Being an airplane mechanic, most of
the pictures were of planes, John working on planes, John in planes, so I
pulled out all the random vintage things that had to do with flight and
planes. These vintage travel stickers worked great.
A few pictures of the rest of
the book. My husband now keeps this next to his flag from the memorial and
every so often opens it up to take a peak. As we discover more of his time
spent in the military, we are able to use the blank pages I included to record
some of his moments and memories.
Thanks for stopping by today and
a special shout out and Thank You to those who have served and are serving in Militaries Around the World, keeping their countries safe. Bless you.
