The Greatest Gifts

Posted: March 9, 2018 | By: Lisa E

“The Greatest Gift I Ever Gave/The Greatest Gift I Ever Received”

As a founder of Heritage Makers I have heard many times the sentence, “Thank you for introducing me to Heritage Makers, I made my mom/grandfather/child the greatest gift ever and by doing so I felt the most amazing feelings of love and joy.”

This Christmas I was fortunate to experience this sentiment again when my client, Emily, made a book for her mother. A book that brought so much joy to both her mother and herself during a very challenging Christmas season.

Emily, my client, my running partner, and my neighbor, started doing Heritage Makers books long before we became neighbors three years ago. She has been a scrapbooker and changed to use Heritage Makers to create her yearly family album when she saw all the wonderful art and creative options as well as the convenience of doing it from any computer or location. She has created a family yearbook with Heritage Makers every year for the past 6 years and every single time the mail man delivered her book to her door she would text me to tell me how thrilled she was with it and tell me to come over and see it! I love when my clients celebrate their books with me. They know that I understand all the love they put into it.

See recent text message:

Early this fall Emily got a very fun idea for a different kind of book — a gift. She had this amazing idea to make her mom a book that celebrates all the quilts her mom has ever made for their family. That is a lot of quilts as Emily’s mom has 10 children and over 50 grandchildren all of whom she has created a beautiful handmade quilt.

For the next several weeks Emily contacted each sibling and asked them to provide her with photos of the quilts along with a few words to Mom/Grandma about the quilt she had lovingly made each and every one of them.

Here are a few of the gorgeous quilts that she collected for the book:

It took some time to collect all the photos and statements but Emily did it and ordered it a few days before something tragic happened. Just a few weeks before Christmas Emily had a tragic house fire. Thankfully her family was safe but it would be a year before they could live in her home again. Her family was understandably devastated. She told me recently that in such a time of pain and turmoil she was grateful for the little bit of peace she felt thinking at least a lot of her photos were safe with Heritage Makers and all of the books she created were safe too. She then told me that not only did her mom love the quilt book she had created for her that Christmas, Emily said that the creative process of it and being able to give it to her mom provided her the greatest joy during that hard season for her and her family.

Here is a photo of her mother with the book and a what she had to say when I asked what she thought of this special quilt book:

How can a book like this have such an impact? What about this book makes Emily’s mom open it and read it over and over? Was it that it was lovingly created? Was it that it had precious photos along with loving and heartfelt words to go with each photo? Whatever the answer there is one thing I do know and have experienced it time and again: when we put the time into a book like this and we put together the photos with the stories MAGIC happens. We capture that which matters most. It blesses the recipient, yes, but it blesses the book creator too.

Heritage Makers is the most wonderful creative studio where you can make magic like this happen and trust me, the magic does not come when the mail man delivers the finished product. It is the process, it is the creating, it is the love and communication and interviewing and collecting. If that sounds too hard for you or like it takes too long and you are much too busy then you might miss out on joyful experiences like Emily and her mom had. Emily, a busy labor and delivery nurse, mother of four, made the time to do something wonderful for her mother, to give back a little of the joy she and her family felt when they received the beautiful hand-crafted quilts that took her mother so much time and love to create.

We should all experience that joy at least once I think. What story do you have that wants to be told? A vacation? Pet? Love story? What about a grandparent? A special coach? A mission? A special vacation? A new baby? A miracle? Tradition? A special child? Your mother? Your father? A special teacher? You could look through a box of photos. They will talk to you and inspire you and your story will take shape. Heritage Makers will bring the magic together. So I invite you to take the time, in this fast-paced-I’m-too-busy world of automatic everything and create something that will put a smile on someone’s face and be treasured for generations.​

– Candy May, Ambassador for Heritage Makers


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