Retirement-Thank you

Shortly, I'll be saying Thank you to my long-time mentor who is off to his well deserved retirement. I have been lucky to be on his side in the outpatients' department in the last couple of years and absorb his wonderful way of dealing with patients.
A way full of understanding and compassion, without patronizing the ones looking for advice.
A way that shows that Oncology isn't always meant to be sad or depressing - in fact, those hours have always been most uplifting to me and probably got me through the boring theory without greater damage to my goals or loss of motivation :)
The patients I got to know were extraordinary in many ways. There, too, were tears and disbelief and looking for options when there were none. Appointments that were made but not kept. But above all, there were patients proving that there is life, laughter and hope beyond the diagnosis.

For the goodbye, I prepared a little something that includes a stitched card in soft blue and silver shades, combined with a couple of pearls. Actually, I cheated a little bit with the card as I've stitched it a while ago. I only put it together now. Funny how I know that preparing things in advance saves lots of time & nerves when it comes to crafting, and with exams it's always last-minute panic :)

I love this pattern as it looks very elegant, however it was hard to find a matching centerpiece. In the end, I decided to go for punched butterflies which I decorated with some more pearls - after all, there are still many dreams to catch once you leave your job behind ;)

Unfortunately, as there's rain outside I can't get proper light conditions for the photos, so the ones here are not exactly how the card looks in reality.

As I've never made a retirement card before, I decided not to go for a personal or funny card in my first try. With all the blue however it might look like a baby card :) Or a spring/Easter one?

challenges:
- basteltanten: ATG
- basteltraum: Easter
- the pink elephant: photo inspiration
- papertake weekly: a cut above (punched butterflies)
- craft-alnica: wings
- fadengrafik challenge: calling for spring
- handmadechallenge: ATG
- abc challenge: F for festive