Special Day

As I alluded to earlier this week, today is a special day for me and the Little Paper Shop team. Julia was so sweet to allow me to design a stamp set for charity in recognition of Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week which starts today!

Long-time followers of this blog know that my youngest, Avery, was born with Transposition of the Great Arteries the Christmas before last. She had two surgeries (one when she was eight hours old and the major open heart surgery [the arterial switch] at two weeks old). She spent an additional two weeks in the hospital and then was sent home with an excellent prognosis. Little did I know before I had Avery that 1 in 100 babies is born with a congenital heart defect. Much has been done in this last generation to diagnose and repair CHDs however much remains to be done.

This digital stamp set, titled "Broken Hearts for Broken Hearts", will be available at the Little Paper Shop for a donation of five dollars. All the proceeds (save any PayPal transactions fees) will be donated to the Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton to aid in research and the purchase of specialized equipment.

This stamp set not only reflects the cause but I think also fills a niche for those bittersweet moments of love. Give a card to your lovesick teen, make up from a fight with your partner or just celebrate Anti-Valentine's Day with your girlfriends! I would love to see any creations made with this set (which will only be available for a limited time) so please leave me a comment if you do! Here's a couple samples I created with this set:

Lots of Bittersweet DP from Basic Grey as well as some pearls as accents make for a pretty card. The sentiment I featured here would play well as an "in and out" stamp (i.e., including "...boy that sucked." on the inside of the card as a surprise. It especially works well to juxtapose an elegant card front such as this).

A card I made (and mailed! Go me!) for our most-excellent surgeon, Dr. Ivan Rebeyka. (Used the sentiment from LPS' {Angelic Jena}.) I used the sketch that Cindy provided here and then sponged every bit of it with Distress Ink Tea Dye (yum!). I used the CB textile folder for the card base and textured CS to give the distress ink something to grab on to. (Note: I used the cutter files included with this set [in SVG and GSD] to make that band-aid...there is no way I could have done that on my own!)

KUDOS: I only came up with the idea to create this stamp set just over a week ago. I am so fortunate that I have an indulgent team to work with who came through with creations to promote this stamp set. Thanks so much ladies...you are a fun bunch to work with!

Here are the blogs of my LPS teammates:

• Little Paper Shop Blog
• Julia
• Pam
• Allison
• Bonnie
• Cindy
• Jennifer
• Julie
• Heather
• Ann
• Silvia

Positive note of the day: If you are a CHD parent, these resources I have found to be quite useful as I parented Avery these last thirteen months:

• http://community.babycenter.com/groups/a5055/babies_and_children_with_heart_problems
• One in One Hundred
• chd babies
• chdspeaks.org