IMAG0693.jpg This is the front cover of the Order of Service I created for Mum's funeral. I did the calligraphy A4 then it was shrunk down to A5 for printing (it looks better done that way). It used to take me a day to do a piece like this, back when I didn't wear glasses, but it took me two days because I had to wear one pair of glasses to do the really close details and then another to look at the page as a whole. Plus I had Maisy "helping" me the whole time :)
The inking around the edge is leaf green and bluebell blue to match Mum's coffin, which was by a company called Colourful Coffins. They make eco-coffins from recycled paper and eco-inks and carbon offset any coffin that goes to cremation. Mum had said that she either wanted to be buried with Dad or out in a big field. As she was to be buried with Dad we thought an eco-coffin would fulfil the open field part of her wishes. She loved bluebell woods so when my brother and I saw a photo of a bluebell wood coffin we knew it was the right one.
Mum was buried in a suit and blouse that I had made her many years ago, wearing the ring that I made her for Christmas and gave to her after her stroke in hospital, and holding some paper flowers that I had made for her when she first went into hospital and she loved them.
The funeral went really well and was very well attended, so much so that I hadn't made enough copies of the Order of Service and people had to share. It might not have been quite so bad had I not left some of them at home on a desk, where they were waiting to have their covers re-stuck where the glue hadn't worked! Oh dear! I was quite pleased when the undertaker said they don't usually keep the Order of Service from funerals they attend, but asked whether he could keep it in this case.