Thoughtful Frog

I love this little frog from the SU set A Flower for All Seasons. I finally mounted this set last night and inked it up for Karen Giron's Sweet Sunday Sketch # 24.


Nothing too complicated here...the patterned paper is from the same DCWV Latte Mat Stackpaper I used for the teacher cards paired with SU certainly celery and orchid opulence and Gina K Pure Luxury heavy base weight- chocolate kiss.

I don't think I've ever used orchid opulence, but what a great colour and it goes so well with Papertrey's satin ribbon! Because I ran the ribbon straight across the card instead of following the sketch exactly, I moved the sentiment strip (from the SU Trendy Trees set, which I also finally mounted last night) up a little. The froggy image is stamped in Adirondack espresso and coloured with copics.


Thanks for looking!
~Nancy

Teacher Cards

So these are the cards I was working on the night before the Bella Birthday Blog Hop--teacher cards! I totally CASEd Dawn's 'Thanks a bunch' card for my daughter's two teachers:

I created the flowers with my Sizzix BIGZ Flower & Leaf die using an assortment of DCWV Latte Mat Stackpaper. I stitched around the edge of slices of Papertrey plum pudding cardstock from my generous friend Charlene mounted on Gina K's Pure Luxury heavy base weight- chocolate kiss (I don't think any dark brown cardstock really compares with this) and added assorted buttons to tie in the colour scheme. Quick and fairly easy.

The next one was for my son's teacher who gave him lots of support; engaging projects; and encouragement and energy this year.

I spotted the sentiment on Lisa Johnson's blog and thought it was perfect for Aidan's teacher. Since I don't own this Papertrey Ink stamp set, I created my own in Illustrator and printed it on Gina K 120lb pure luxury cardstock.

The tree and swing are from Taylored Expressions Branching Out and Branching Out Accessories, the first sets I designed for Taylor. Love this tree!!! The colour choices were inspired by the sweet schoolyard paper from the Basic Grey Mellow 6x6 paper pad and the funky orange is from K&Company 's Carolyn Gavin Greenhouse paper pad. Overall, I was thrilled with my stitching and how this card turned out.

Thanks for looking...

~Nancy

Happy Birthday, Emily-Life is a Party!!

Welcome to the Birthday Blog Skip, Hop & Dance sponsored by Stamping Bella where you can start at the beginning if you've just happened upon my blog.

Here's my card to celebrate Emily's birthday who's only turning 37 today! I wanted to create something bright and cheery and this American Crafts metropolitan paper is just that (I think). I followed this week's Mojo Monday #92 sketch and managed to whip this party card up in 30 minutes because I forgot today was the blog hop and just discovered that I was part of it before my morning rush with the kids!

I used nestabilities, embossed a piece of Papertrey raspberry fizz (more on my new Papertrey paper that came in a care-package from Charlene later today) with my cuttlebug, trimmed the scallops from the AC paper and wrapped it with SU ribbon, floss and love! The image is coloured with copics.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Now it's time to hop on over to Megan's blog...

~Nancy

'a happy hello' in a row

I wanted to play along with Karen's Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge this week, gave the sketch a turn and thought the little squares would make perfect windows for this sweet stack of birds from Remember Happiness, Unity's August 2008 Kit of the Month. Although I love this Basic Grey patterned paper, I think it's a little busy for this card--I tried to tie it together with my wavy border and SU ribbon and buttons. The birds are coloured with copics. And since Emily asked, I used my smaller square nestabilities to punch out the squares--they made it easy (although maybe a little time-consuming) because I just had to line up the next square with the subtle embossed lines from the previous one.

Thanks for looking!

~Nancy

Happy Birthday, Taylor!!

Taylor, it's your birthday today, so here's a card (actually two) to wish you a very wonderful day filled with what makes you happiest, which I expect includes cupcakes!! You're a wonderful inspiration. I couldn't decide on bright and bursting with love or paper-pieced, adorable monkey cakes for your 'beary special' day...

~Nancy

Details to follow later today...I had to run with Henri to Sick Kids (don't worry...just a scheduled appointment) before I could finish this post and set up the links.

Tic-Tac-Toe with Cupcakes

Today’s the day—you can purchase the Taylored Expressions stamp sets and other bundles and treats revealed this week. I’m thrilled with how the card I created with my For the Love of Cupcakes set (one of the sets in the Whimsical Wishes line I design) turned out. Dawn’s color challenge was just the perfect thing for a cupcake card—bright pink, cream, chocolate and kraft. Sounds just like a cupcake fresh from the bakery to me! While blogging recently I discovered Heather Pulvirenti’s creations-WOW! Heather’s got talent...and this one caught my eye. I thought this layout combined with cupcakes would make a great tic-tac-toe card. I also got a little braver with sewing card layers this time and stitched the game board and borders and even the inside!! But the greatest little find was the QuikKutz magnetic sheets I bought at a local scrapbooking store. I can’t believe that four 4”x12” sheets were just 5.99 CDN! Don’t you think that’s a deal? I punched magnets with my SU ½” circle punch for the backs of the cupcakes, which are coloured with copics and paper-pieced with retired SU designer paper Loves Me, and larger circles using the ¾” punch for the playing zone. It's hard to see the cream patterned polka dot paper used for the cupcake liners on the chocolate frosted cupcakes. I made a home for the spare cupcake on the inside of the card using the same oval nesties I used for the sentiment on the front of the card.

I hope this gives you a little inspiration today and that you head right on over to the Taylored Expressions store and load up with cupcakes and other ‘beary special’ stamps!

~Nancy

A 'beary special' day

Thanks for visiting today. There’s lots going on over at Taylored Expressions this week and I’m especially excited about the sneak peeks today. Two ‘Beary Special’ Whimsical Wishes sets are coming your way on June 5th and Taylored Expressions will donate generously for each set sold. So why Sick Kids up in Canada?

As many of you know, my son Henri was diagnosed just under two years ago with chronic granulomatous disease (CGD), an immune disease he was born with. I’ve often thought that we were so fortunate in this case not to know earlier because Henri was allowed to do everything that kids love to do and that he saw his older brother and sister do—he splashed in puddles, played at parks, picked up frogs, plucked flowers, climbed trees and jumped in lakes. All of these things are on the DO NOT DO list when you have CGD because the beautiful world around us naturally has fungus and mould just doing it’s job and not visible to the eye. A persistent and odd infection on Henri’s wrist (probably from getting stuck by a thorn on a bush), which travelled up his arm to his lymph nodes, brought us to emergency and very quickly to Sick Kids. A young, ‘very with-it’ doctor led us from his diagnosis to the immunology team for testing. We didn’t think we would ever need to go for a risky bone marrow transplant, the one possible cure, but within a year that’s where we were.

I originally thought about creating a scrapbook page to give a glimpse of Henri’s experience since August 2007 at Sick Kids, but I thought just two pictures would tell you quite a bit...

Here Henri is three and desperately wanting to water ski like his older siblings. He’s trying out his moves on the dock at the cottage. He looks healthy and we believe he is—we have no idea that he has an immune disease or that an aspergillus infection is spreading from the tiny mark on his left wrist to his lymph nodes, his lungs and his spleen. This was about two months before we were given the devastating news. I think this picture should be the poster for CGD. Look at his life vest, which says 'endurance' on the badge. Endurance is something he’s needed and fortunately has plenty of!

The second picture tells just as much. Here Henri is just outside of 8B (the isolated bone marrow transplant ward) visiting with his twin siblings, Morgana and Aidan. Henri has started his chemo but still feels well enough to venture out of his little room, which will eventually be more strictly isolated and he won’t leave for about 20 days after his transplant. Look at his face and then his sister who will give her bone marrow blood to save her brother in about 10 days. Neither look uncomfortable or frightened (well actually, I guess Morgana looks a little nervous)—Sick Kids has been Henri’s home on and off throughout the year; the public areas are open, welcoming and often where you might see a favourite doctor, nurse or clown; Henri thinks his central line is cool and certainly better than a line in his arm; he knows that everyone is looking out for him and that even though the chemo and pre-meds are awful that he wouldn’t be going through this if we didn’t believe in his cure.

I’m working on a simple collection of cards to take to Sick Kids when we go for Henri’s bloodwork and follow-up on Friday.

I haven't coloured them yet but I may leave them as is and wrap up the collection with pencils--kids in hospital beds like to colour too. If you have a children’s hospital (or any hospital) near you, think about taking in some cards—some children live for long periods of time in the hospital and celebrate birthdays and other important holidays while they’re there. From Feb. 2 to May 29 last year Henri lived at Sick Kids and celebrated Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day and his own birthday before he got out—did I miss any there? Some kids don’t get cards unless the hospital has a great child life program in place. Please give it some thought...

But here's my card for today's sneak peek. Yes, a tangerine monkey inspired by one of the twin's first stuffies. I flipped Taylor's Cupcake Challenge sketch this week and used papers from K&Company (Carolyn Gavin Greenhouse collection) and We R Memory Keepers (Nonsense). The flower is cut from a slice from the Greenhouse collection--I couldn't believe how well it went with the flower image in this set! I used four of my favourite images from the two sets to create this little scene and coloured with copics, but I desperately need someone to teach me how to master them. Karen??? Anyway, 'thanks for your kindness' visiting today...

Enjoy the sneak peeks this week!!

~Nancy

If you are interested in knowing more about CGD, Henri’s journey and how Sick Kids has made a huge difference in our lives, please visit the blog we kept to keep family and friends informed: http://henri.typepad.com (username=henri; password=hair).