Hug a Child's Heart - Literally

Re-printed with my friend, Donna's, permission:

HUG A CHILD'S HEART - LITERALLY!

"Greetings, everyone!

(a special note to my friends in the U.S.)

There are many card drives during the holidays and throughout the year.

May I share about one you may have never heard of?

"HUG A HEART" CARDS DRIVE FOR CHILDREN

Our Blogging Buddy Christina Hor Memories Crafter has a very special Mission.

Her husband is a cardiologist at Ohio's Nationwide Children's Hospital.

Christina tries to give parents of terminally ill children in the cardiac unit encouragement cards during the long process of procedures and care. If the saddest moment of loss happens, she provides a heartfelt sympathy card to the parents at the loss of their sweet baby or dear child.

She also tries to provide cheerful cards to the children in the cardiac intensive care and inpatient wings throughout the year.

Especially during Christmas she strives to deliver holiday cards.

This year, Christina and her children are creating mini 3D Christmas trees for each room in the intensive care and inpatient wings.

With so many rooms, Christina has never been able to have a card for every child spends Christmas in the cardiac unit. 

This year, she is hoping to do that, but needs a little help from friends.

Would you like to create a simple, sweetly-appropriate children's Christmas card for those pediatric cardiac patients who will have to spend the holidays in the hospital?

If so, here is Christina's message

As these cards go to very young age children and of different ethnic background, I do have a few guidelines.

DO's:

• use kid's friendly images.  Kids love anything that is cute, cuddly and funny such as teddy bears, woodland creatures, reindeer, penguins as well snowman.  Just to name a few.

• keep it clean with minimum embellishments.  However, shaker cards and pop-up cards are welcome.  So if you like making one of these cards and you know who you are, please do!   But please make sure to use strong adhesive to ensure that none of the shaker/embellishment pieces fall out.  

• consider keeping your theme more of a: winter scene, "thinking of you" as well just a general "holiday" theme since not all of them celebrate Christmas.  Some celebrate Hanukkah, Bodhi Day, Pancha Ganapati and some just don't celebrate the holiday at all.  So avoid using sentiment like "Merry Christmas" on your card.  

           Here are some sentiments i like to use: Let It Snow; Warm Winter Wishes; Thinking of you this holiday season; Sending you lots of hugs and wishing you a happy holiday.

If you are able to help, please have your card mail to me by December 10th to the address below.  If you know of any crafty friends who would like to help, please forward the message to them or share on your blog post.  It is safe to include the address in the blog post as it is my PO Box address and not my home address.  

Christina Hor 

P.O. Box 517

Dublin, OH 43017

Thank you SO MUCH in advance for your help!

Hugs,

Christina

RECAPPING:

Christina suggested greetings to read something like:

"Sending you hugs and thinking of you this holiday season. From Ms. Christina of Ohio"

(only use your own name, of course LOL)

She will be delivering the cards and trees on Dec 15. 

She is requesting cards by December 10.

REMEMBER:

NO GLITTER - NO ORNAMENTATION THAT

 MIGHT FALL OFF OR BE PROBLEMATIC 

FOR SMALL CHILDREN.

and a sweet thank you from me to my Sweet Friends!"

Let's all get in the Christmas spirit and make some cards to share.  

Inky hugs!

Christmas Card 2011

Wow, I've been gone awhile, and while I've been gone, Google changed how I blog.  It will be a new learning curve for me for sure.

How have you been?  I've got this stupid cold that is going around, and it stinks!  I don't know if I will ever kick it.  However, being sick is not all bad. I got a chance to get into my studio and create.  First I will give you a preview of some of my Christmas cards this year.  I mailed most of them out before I realized that I hadn't scanned them, so I apologize for only giving you a preview of one of them.

Some of the reindeer I added "ornaments" to the antlers with glitter glue. Because I get bored making the same card over and over. The cards have different background papers, just to keep it fresh.

I also made tags for Christmas presents.  So stay tuned, and tomorrow I will share the first tag.

Hope you are doing something crafty today...

Santa Elf

Good afternoon! It's chilly in Florida, and I bet it's cold where you are, too. My husband's family lives in New Hampshire, and they have been snowed in for awhile, sometimes without power, and were looking to get more snow. They will be having a white Christmas, to say the least. I hope you are staying warm wherever you may be.

This card was made by Andrea C., using the Santa Elf stamp from My Paper Moon. This was an easy card to make, since there was no coloring of the image involved, and it looks very nice. I like the buttons and washers she used on the gifts.

I really love snowflakes, so I made this card using a die from my Cuttlebug. I put frosted glitter on the snowflake. I also stamped a small stamp and punched it out and adhered to the middle of the snowflake, then adhered that to a piece of blue ribbon. Another quick and easy card.

That's all for today, but I'll try to post again tomorrow. Stay warm.

Christmas cards and cards for the troops

Yes, I know it's only February, but I like to get a head start on my Christmas cards. Every January I challenge myself to make 5 Christmas cards a month. That's all I'm required to make, just 5. If I'm on a roll and having a good time, that's all well and good, I can make as many as I like, but I HAVE to make 5. By the time December rolls around, if I've only made the 5 required per month, I have 60 Christmas cards all ready made and ready to go. Here is one of the cards I made in January.

There are 6 stamps used to make this card. Stamps are from Dream Impressions.

It's a good thing I had all those cards made this past year, because in November I received a request for Christmas cards to send to the troops, and I ended up sending 150 Christmas cards that I had made, and still managed to make about 60 more to send to my friends. I wouldn't have been able to do that if I hadn't already had some cards made, so for me it's a personal thing. I would like to challenge you to make 5 Christmas cards a month, too. Leave me a comment and let me know if you are taking the challenge.

Speaking of cards to send to the troops, I have had a request from a Captain for cards for the troops to use to write home to their loved ones. These would be blank cards for them to write in, not cards that you are writing in for them. If you have cards laying around that need a good home, I would be delighted to send them to the troops. I have done this before, and I can tell you, the cards go very quickly, and there is always a request for more. If you are a demonstrator for Stampin' Up or The Angel Company or Close To My Heart or one of the other companies, and you have sample cards using retired sets, this is a great way to clean them out. And if you would like to put your contact info on them (just in case a stamper ultimately gets the card and wants to see what you have), that's great too. I would request that you send envelopes for the cards, as this gets quite expensive if I have to supply the envelopes and the postage to mail them to Iraq. I am getting together a box right now, so if this is something you think you would like to do, please email me at mypapermoon512@aol.com and let me know to wait for your cards. I can assure you they are greatly appreciated.

Hope you have a wonderful evening. Talk to you soon.

More Christmas

Good afternoon! I've been a busy girl today. After making out my Christmas Card list, and checking it twice, I found that I don't have anough cards made. And this is after I made 200 cards! Of course, I mailed off 140 of those to the troops.

So, I got busy, and made 10 more, but I still have a few more to make to have enough for MY list. And hubby hasn't given me HIS list yet!

Anyway, I thought I'd share a few more cards for inspiration.

This card is a matchbook card.I really like to make these cards, and they are soooooo easy!



I liked the look of this card....very soothing with the blues and purples. In case you didn't know it, blue is my favorite color.

And a snowman card. I love snowmen! This is another matchbook card. The scan doesn't snow it, but there are also white snowflakes stamped along with the blue ones.

I hope you have gotten some inspiration today, and I hope you get some crafting done.

I have a busy weekend ahead...making more Christmas cards, going to dinner with my daughter and her family, and tomorrow we'll be going to the cemetary to put the Christmas flowers on my parent's graves.

Christmas Cards

Good afternoon! Hope all is well in your little corner of the world.

Here is a sort-of Christmas card. At least it's an idea. I love this painter elf, and use him quite a bit. You could have him painting a Christmas background, or change the colors of his clothing and have him painting Easter eggs, or birthday backgrounds...the possibilities are endless. I stamped him and masked him before stamping the background stamp. The more paper you leave around the elf, the more background you will mask, leaving an area the elf hasn't painted. The elf is available from http://www.mypapermoon.com. Just type painter in the search box.

Isn't he fun?

Being in Florida, I couldn't have Christmas without some "Florida-style" cards. Here is one of my favorites...



The stamp is from The Angel Company, and is stamped on acetate. It's colored with markers and paint and layered on crushed aluminum foil. I love the colors...flamingo colors, and this card would be perfect for children or grandchildren.

One more Florida-style card:



This one is also done using the painted foil technique. I love the lights on the palm tree, which I colored and then added crystal lacquer to make them shiny and have texture. This stamp is also from The Angel Company.

I'll be back soon with more Christmas cards to share.