We Have a Winner!

Hello! Well, I know I said that I would post my Blog Candy Winner on Thursday - it looks like I am a bit late (It's about 12:06 am on Friday) Anyway - I tried.

From my random number generator I got #10 and the 10th person to post for my blog candy about her craft room was LindaSS. So, I'm waiting to hear from Linda so I can get her new Tags So Much Stampin' Up! stamp set. Congratulations Linda!!

Okay now to share a little info about my card I made above. First of all, it is one of the cards I made while sitting in the hospital with Sophie. She was in TV coma mode happily watching cable TV (A luxury we don't have here at home - if we did we would all be watching too much TV and I am envious of all you who get to watch Carol Duvall and QVC - but that's another story) - She was in Disney channel heaven and I was doing my best to keep myself occupied so I did not have to dwell on the possibilitIes of Sophie's illness. Anyway - here is a creation I did with Polka Dots & Paisley. I also stamped the polka dots on some pretty in pink cardstock and adhered it to a piece of the chipboard and sanded it down. Then I placed one of the new cool rhinestone brads in the center. Oh and used some of the Stampin' Up! Designer Paper.

Now you'll notice my sentiment on the front. That is from a company called RUBBER STAMPING FUN (notice the link here - I'll post it to my favorites soon). I really like this sentiment. It comes with 3 others in the set. They are pretty nice stamps - wood mounted - they carry some clear stamps too. I took the sentiment and stamped it on pretty in pink and certainly celery paper then cut out the words individually. It really looks nice as a whole too. I really like this font and how the stamp is laid out. I'll share more of this set at a later date.

Last Item I want to share with you is how I did the swayed border with my designer paper and whisper white. After much searching I found the new flexible ruler from Bo Bunny Press. You may have seen this advertised in all the recent scrapbooking and paper crafting magazines. I've been looking all over for it and I finally found it at our local crafting store (Country Needleworks). I think I got a pretty good deal on mine because I got a whole Apron Tool Kit- I got pencils, sanding boards, a pink apron, a stapler and staples, a pencil sharpener, eraser, bone folder, ruler, scissors and the flexible ruler! It totally ROCKS! Plus I got the whole package of stuff for only $14.99 and it retails for $29.99! I was so excited! The flex ruler is what I was really after and it is really cool. You just shape the 20" ruler into any shape you want, trace and cut out! Here is a picture of the Apron Tool Kit. Oh if you noticed, I've inserted a link to the Bo Bunny Press site. Check it out.

Today, I am also going to share with you my proud parent moment today. Well, from my previous post you know about our recent medical situation with my dear Sophia. Well, Sophia went with my mom on Tuesday to the doctors where my mom has to go once a month for her blood to be drawn. We wanted to show Sophie how her "Baci" (grandmother in Polish - sort of) deals with having her blood taken. This has been pretty rough on Sophie as she is quite scared every time we have to go and last time they had to poke her twice because she tensed up so much. Anyway you can see our philosophy on having her go with my mom. Unfortunately I think the reason she really went is because mom offered to take her out to lunch afterwards. Well, she's not one to pass up a free lunch and one on one time with Baci. Well, I don't think our philosophy worked, but God still had something else planned for her that day. At Applebee's where they went to lunch Sophie was reading her children's menu and it had a little ad on there about an organization called "Alex's Lemonade Stand". It basically tells kids that they can set up a lemonade stand to earn money to go towards this organization which raises money for pediatric cancer research. I guess this touched Sophie because today she had a lemonade stand out front of our house. She sat there from 1-6:30pm. She made about $15 and is ready to go at it again tomorrow. She recruited a couple of friends to help her today and Nolan (my son) even helped out too. She just didn't want to give up on it tonite - I think she would have sat there all night if she could have. I broke my heart to have to tell her to come in. Anyway we are $15 into it and we'll see where tomorrow brings us! I'm so proud of her! In fact, you may be seeing another link under my favorite links for this one soon too.

Thanks for stopping by today.

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Why I've Been Away

Hello my blogging & stamping Friends

I know it has been what seems like ages since I last posted to my blog. We had a little scare with my DD this month and it seems like things are getting a little back to normal. Thanks to those of you who emailed me to see if everything was okay. I appreciate your concern and I appreciate knowing that you all stop here to my little corner of cyberworld often. I have many things in my head that I want to share with you so hopefully with life getting a little more normal I can share some new ideas with you.

Anyway - by now you are probably wondering what it is that has kept me away so long. Well, my DD Sophia for the past few months has been complaining that her ankle is hurting. We took her in May for some X-rays but they came back negative. So we wrote it off as just a sprain or bruise. Well, the pain subsided for a while with her complaining about it off and on. Well the week of the 4th of July there was some swelling and although she was running around and doing what all active 7 year olds do it was still bothering her. Hence, we called the Dr. again and this time he wanted another set of x-ray's but he also wanted some blood work. We went on July 5 for the x-rays which they read right away and still nothing showed. We then went upstairs (we are at the hospital for all of this) for the lab work and waited until the next day for some answers. The nurse called and said they wanted another set of lab work done and that they would probably admit her to the hospital because they wanted to get an MRI. They did the MRI and found 3 spots on her ankle and informed us they needed to do a bone biopsy. They did that and we had to wait 48-72 hours for the results. At this time I was preparing for the worst news - that my DD had cancer. My dad died of a sarcoma type cancer 4 years ago so you can imagine it was was I was expecting the results of the biopsy to be. Thankfully, after spending 5 days in the hospital they let us know that the biopsy showed no cancer and grew no bacteria - however, because of the elevated sed rate and white blood count they think she has a bacterail infection in her bone. The name for it is Osteomyelits. Her presentation of this infection is very atypical which is why all this has stumped the Doctors. She was treated for 2 days in the hospital with IV antibiotics (we nicknamed the IV machine EVIL IVY) - very stong ones that needed to be administered every 8 hours. Sophie has been sent home with a cast on her leg to prevent any breakage since he did put a hole in her ankle for the biopsy. We had to meet with a pediatric infectious disease specialist late last week and he has put her on a 6 month regiem of heavy antibiotics and weekly blood work. Apparently this is a pretty tough bacteria to fight. Yesterday we went back to see the orhtapedic Dr. where he put a new cast on her - NEON PINK with a matching walking boot! And - get this - the new cast is also waterproof so she can still go swimming and salvage some fun out of the rest of her summer. Praise God for his wonderful works and life lessons. Sophie and all of us here have learned so much about the power of pray and how resiliant we can be when we really stick together and pray together. I am so proud of her and how she has handled this whole ordeal.

Sorry for such a long post, but it really is just a nutshell of the story - we are on the mend.

I wanted to share a picture of my beautiful girl which you see above. It is one of the items sent in to Stampin' Up! as a display sample. For those of you who don't know I was chosen to be a display sampler for this year's convention. Unfortunately I cannot attend convention this year, but my work will. I absolutely love this page of Sophie. She is such a great, caring wonderful girl and this page just represents her beauty so well. I did it all in black white and embossed in silver. I used the new "Wanted" stamp set. Sophie loves horses and this set was perfect for doing pages of her.

Oh yes, like my watermark next to the picture? I did it all by myself! I am so proud of it. I have Photoshop 5.0 and I taught myself how to do it. I did a few of them! Fun Fun!!

Keep posted for more items I submitted!

I'll draw for my blog candy today too - for those of you who have been so patiently waiting. I really love hearing how you all organize your stamping spaces! Very interesting reads and ideas. Thank you all who responded. So - next post I will draw my winner!

Have a splendid day!!

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