No card ... but look what I've done!!!

I designed and hand painted this beautiful background to give my blog a totally new look.

LOL - do you believe me - no I thought not. I actually visited this amazing blog ...

http://blo64rt.blogspot.com/

where there are the most beautiful backgrounds and headers freely available!!! To make it even better there are even detailed instructions on how to change your blog and they are so easy to follow. Well they must be because I managed it and it didn't take long at all.

So a huge thank you to Itkupilli for sharing her huge talent with us all.

Hope everyone likes my new look.

An idea to share...

Today I am showing a card kit I've made to be used in a local Care Home. This is something you might want to do to both recycle and use up some of the things in your stash that you may never use yourself. I'm sure that any home would welcome kits to use with the people in their care.

My daughter, Laura, is a nurse at the home and on Monday she came home saying that they had got a new resident, who was suffering from dementia and was also very depressed.

It had been decided that the lady needed to do activities to stimulate her brain and build up a little self esteem. She isn't interested in anything and doesn't really want to participate so any activity tried with her has to be really simple. The lady's family are buying her kits, but it is hard to get things easy enough, but not childish.

This led to me making this kit, which although made for one lady is something that will be used with the other residents in the home. If it goes down well I will extend it and make more.

The cards in the kit are almost made - they just need the bits sticking on, BUT the big thing about the kit is that it gives loads of opportunity for the carer and resident to talk as they work. I was trying to provide the opportunity for the lady to think and make choices so I made 4 base cards with different sentiments, 4 different coloured nestabily circles and 4 different designs of bears (recycled from Laura's birthday cards - she had a lot the same).

I'm hoping that the kit goes down well and that I can make more for Laura to take in to work. I'm also going to make some for home to sell as a fund raisers at their Summer fair.

Post Pal Kesia...

Well that's one card done for each of the children in the family I chose to send 'happy' post to at Post Pals now so I just need to get these put together with the little Tesco craft sets and get them posted off.

Again I've used the Penny Black letters combined with some paper that was a magazine freebie.

As it's another 'Letters' card it fits the challenge at Cute Card Thursday again - well I have missed quite a few of their challenges lately so maybe this makes up.

If you haven't visited Post Pals yet do take a look and don't forget Dustin Pike has a fantastic blog candy on offer to support them too.

Post Pal Zack...

Many of the challenge sites over the past week or so have been encouraging card makers to take a look at Post Pals. I'm so pleased that they have as this is such a worthwhile thing to get involved with.

Dustin Pike is also doing a blog candy giveaway in support of Post Pals. What a brilliant idea and one I think I might take up later in the year for my birthday giveaway. Do pop over to Dustin's blog to join in and perhaps you might like to use one of his fantastic digi images to make your card.

My card yesterday was for Tom. Today I have made a card for his brother, Zack. I feel strongly that you should include something for all children in the family and not just the ill child. I know from when my own daughter was very ill her sister had quite a lot to put up with and perhaps didn't get as much attention as she should have had.

As well as being especially made for Zack my card is also for the challenge at ...

My Time to Craft - 'Kid's Cards'
Cute Card Thursday - 'Letters and Numbers'

Materials used:

• Penny Black Alphabet stamps
• DCWV papers and card
• Cricut - stars
• Swiss Dots embossing folder
• Star sentiment from See-D set of stamps
• Silver border and star peel offs
• Lyra aqua colours and Derwent aqua colours

Still got one more card to do before my parcel can go!!! Why did I choose a family with 3 kids? LOL

Monograms and Letters...

Monday again - oh gosh the weeks just fly by and of course Monday means that we have a new challenge over at the Pink Elephant. This week we are focusing on Monograms and Letters.

For one of my projects I decided to make a book mark. The initial stamp I used is one of four letters on a cube stamp I bought some time ago on ebay. I'm not really sure of the maker, but it is a beautiful design with the letter A entwined with an amaryllus flower.

My second project is something I have been wanting to do for sometime. It's a card to send to one of the children on Post Pals. If you haven't heard of this then do click on the 'Make a child smile' banner in my side bar. It is a very worthwhile organisation.

As you may have guessed my card is for a boy called Tom. I used my Cricut to cut out a large letter T tree and some leaves and then decorated the tree with animals from a Hero Arts clear stamp set.

I bought 3 small craft sets in a sale at Tesco last week and now I just need to make cards for Tom's sister and brother so that I can get the things sent off.

I hope my card and gift will bring smiles to the family, like many of the children on Post Pals they have a lot to contend with and it does help to lift spirits a little when the postman delivers something fun.