preciousdesignphotos

In 2010, a close friend and co-worker, was diagnosed with stage three cancer. Upon hearing the news, I immediately began brainstorming on ways I could help her. While I knew little about the cancer she had, I did know two things for certain. One, the road ahead for her was going to long and difficult to say the least. Two, she was going to need a tremendous amount of love and support.

 I considered purchasing a simple greeting card and having everyone at work sign it but quickly dismissed the idea. While I knew she would have appreciated a card, I knew no card could possibly convey and hold all the well wishes and sentiments of those who we worked with. Besides let’s be honest greeting cards are nice but they have a way of getting either lost or tossed into the trash and are easily forgotten about.

 So what could I give her that would convey the well wishes and sentiments of approximately 50 people but would stand the test of time?  I remembered after my daughter’s wedding video was lost, how I used her wedding photos to create a video scrapbook. Then it hit me, it wasn’t a matter of what I could give her but more what I could CREATE for her. Why not combine the idea of a greeting card with the idea of a video scrapbook.

 I then went out and bought a small blank journal in which people could write their well wishes and sentiments. I then went into work and asked everyone if they would write something in the journal and allow me to take their picture. After a week of collecting journal entries and pictures I was ready to begin pulling it all together.

Using presentation software I created a series of individual slides. On each slide I copied a journal entry and united it with corresponding picture. I also added background images, colors and graphics to add extra pop and to tie everything together. I then converted each slide into a picture file and inserted them into my pictures on DVD software.  After adding some very carefully chosen music, fine tuning the transitions between slides I was ready to transfer the entire scrapbook to DVD. The end result was a beautiful and unique video greeting card.

 Now I had created two things to give her. I had the journal which she could read at any time, and the DVD that she could watch anytime. Now she knew how many people truly cared about her and neither the journal nor the DVD would be easily lost or forgotten about.

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