Kylie is Home!

Some of you may know, but most of you will not, that Kylie was kicked in the head by a horse last week. Thirty stiches and 5 nights in the hospital later she is home again. She is doing really well although a little wobbly due to fluid and swelling in her ear wrecking havoc with her equilibrium. The left side of her smile isn't cooperating due to swelling by her facial nerves. She is happy to be home though and back to her story telling, singing, drawing self again. We are grateful for the power of prayer and for the wonderful doctors and nurses at St Lukes in Boise. We couldn't have asked for better care.

Welcome home Kylie!!

P.S. Our next art kit donations will be going to St Lukes hospital. There play room staff was just amazing! They would welcome art kits for their patients would can't leave their rooms. We'll include some of Kylie's drawings in our next set of cards along with some of Cameron's. Please let us know if you are interested in purchasing cards.

More Art Kit Donations!

We have made arrangements to donate another dozen art kits this week to South Valley Santuary in Midvale. "South Valley Sanctuary is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing shelter and supportive services, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to men, women and children who have been victimized by domestic violence." Last year they provided shelter to 238 children and their parents. They are excited to receive art kits for the children in their shelter. I really wish we had more than 12 kits though.

We won't get to visit the shelter in person, but I think it will still mean a lot to Cameron to know that his art kits will go to children who often have to flee their abusers with nothing.

Although we have sold all of Cameron's cards (3 dozen sets total), we are excited to continue this project. Cameron has really enjoyed sharing art supplies with children in need. We hope to create more cards to sell in the future and continue to share art kits.

Cameron and Kylie at the zoo last month.

Kylie's Paper Birthday Cake

I realized that I forgot to share pictures of Kylie's paper birthday cake. I made the cake for Kylie's party favors for her 4th birthday. I was able to fit a sucker, squishy ball, Happy Feet ring, and a mini box of Nerds candy in each triangle cake piece.
I got this cake idea from a post at CircleofCrafters.com. I had seen a paper cake before so I decided to give it a try. I found a template at Mirkwood Designs for cake pieces and copied them at 75% so that I could cut 2 from each piece of 12x12" paper. I then made 8 pieces, cut them out, scored, folded and taped them. All of the papers I used to decorate the cake are Heidi Grace from the It's My Party line (thanks Deea for the paper!) I used my Fiskars Lacy Days of Summer border punch on the pink patterned paper and the blue paper is punched with my Fiskars A Dozen Roses embossing/border punch. The blue paper is flocked and reminded me of frosting. The center flowers are layered on some punched Fiskars Oopsie Daisy Xtra large squeeze punch flowers and punched vines that I outlined with Sakura souffle pens. The punch under the candles is Fiskars Bling Bling small squeeze punch.

This took hours to make but even Cameron said that is was well worth the time. And Kylie did have a real cake...strawberry shortcake with fresh strawberries and whippy cream. Yumm!

Cameron's Video

We made our first art kit delivery yesterday to Primary Children's Hospital. Cameron was so excited to take his first set of art kits to the "primary kids." Although we couldn't personally deliver a kit to any of the children, they did allow us to take them to the play room at the hospital where the art kits will be used. They were so sweet to Cameron and so touched by his generosity. We forgot to take the squeeze punches, decorative scissors, glue sticks and construction paper (they were in a seperate box). We delivered them today and Cameron was so excited to see Marie again (she was our donation contact at the hospital). When we left, he was sad that we wouldn't be seeing her again. We plan to deliver the next group of art kits to the homeless shelter. We still have a few more sets of cards to sell. Please email us if you are interested in purchasing them.

We have more video from our visit and will post it as soon as we download it from our friends camera. Thanks Niecia for videotaping for us! And thank you everyone who has helped Cameron with his Card Project!!

Art Kits are Ready!

Remember these?

Well, look at this! This is what $180 in art supplies looks like

(with some punch, scissor and paper donations).

Yeah!!! We have 24 art kits ready to deliver to Primary Children's Hospital next Wednesday. Each kit has a sketch book, coloring book, washable markers, crayons, pencils and stickers. We will also be delivering some Fiskars squeeze punches, decorative scissors, glue sticks and construction paper for their craft room. Cameron is excited to deliver them and the hospital is very excited to receive them. This has been such a fun project. The kids helped with flattening craft ribbon and Kylie sharpened lots and lots of pencils (have to love automatic pencil sharpeners =) We just need to decorate the outsides of the bags and they are ready to go.

THANK YOU to everyone who has helped out by buying cards, making extra donations (thanks Mumzy, Shirley, Wendy Jo and Jenna!), and helping to sell cards (thanks Mumzy and Shirley!). Thank you Fiskars for the scissors and sqeeze punches.

We will continue Cameron's donation project with the sales of his remaining cards. We may even make future cards with new drawings. We would still really like to make art kit donations to the homeless shelter and domestic abuse shelters as well.

Trainings and Raindots

First, I have to say that I get really, REALLY frustrated when blogger decides to erase my entire post when I try to post it. Doesn't it realize that I just spent an hour, off and on, trying to get this post typed while taking care of kids and Shirley??? Deep breath......
Here we go again: This past Thursday April 24th, I held a tool demonstrator training class for the local scrapbook store managers and buyers in the greater Salt Lake area. Deea Hobbs, the local Fiskars sales rep, set up the training at Heartland Paper Co. in Taylorsville, Utah. After I showed everyone how the Fiskars tools work, we had some prize give-aways, a wonderful lunch (YUMMY sandwiches), make & takes, and time to play with the tools. It was so great to meet all of these wonderful ladies. I loved to hear how excited they were to learn how to use the tools that they sell every day in their stores and warehouses. Thank you ladies for spending your afternoon with us. I hope you had as much fun as I did! Thank you Deea for the wonderful prizes, lunch, make & take, and just being the sweet you that you are!
Raindots! I LOVE raindots! They are so fun and so easy to use! This year there are new raindots shaped like eyelets. These are perfect for the eyelet challenged like myself. I just punched a 1/8" hole and stuck a raindot over the top. Voila! I was done! That was much too easy and much too cute! Thanks May from Fiskateers for sharing some so I could play! And since my card is all about spring, I just have to say "HAPPY SPRING" everyone! Its finally going to hit the mid-70's here today. I am soooo ready for spring.

My Surprise

I got the most wonderful surprise from my friend Carolyn in Australia! She has sent me the Arte Y Pico Award. I met her through http://www.circleofcrafters.com/. She is an amazing card maker and crafter. I now have to select 5 people I believe are deserving of the award as well. I have to get the kids to bed and decide on my 5 so I will have to post them later.

Here is how this works:

1) I have to select 5 blogs who deserve the award for their creativity, interest and design and their contribution to the blogging community irrespective of language.

2)Each award must name the author and a link to their blog so that others may visit their blog

3)Each award winner must show the award and put the name and link of the person they received it from.

4)The award winner and the person who awarded it must show a link to the "Arte Y Pico" blog so that others will know the origin of the award.

Thank you Carolyn for considering me worthy of this award!

The Arte Y Pico Award

(The site is in Spanish. I used http://babelfish.altavista.com/ to translate.)