THE ART OF GIVING.... AND HONORING ERIC.

This post is in honor of my son, Eric James Fossum, who passed away 5 years ago today.  I miss you sweet Eric.
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I saw a post on Facebook the other day, by the family of a sweet little boy named Danny, who has an inoperable brain tumor. His 6th birthday was July 25th.  All he wanted for his birthday were cards in the mail!

 
Danny loves getting cards. Here's the link to the story: Danny Nickerson story.  He has already received over 30,000 cards! The post asked that people send cards for his birthday. I was a little late, but got one done and sent today.

I used a darling sheet of paper full of all sorts of little critters and that had this chalk-like saying that I cut out. The row of animals on the bottom came from a different 6x6 pad! I thought a little boy would love all the animals.

I decided to make the card interactive, so on the inside I put a pocket along the bottom and put some tags in that he could write on (with a little help I'm sure), and a teeny tiny little pocket album with little tags inside.

This little album was made from a 6x6 piece of paper and is 2" tall and 1-1/2 inches wide! Very tiny but room inside for some little tags he can write on or put teeny photos (with help I'm sure!)

I had made the album a few weeks ago, which is a tiny version of the one sheet wonder pocket album that I love so much. Normally it uses a piece of 12x12 paper. This one was made with a piece of 6x6 paper and then I added the little paper edge for the spine. I thought it matched perfectly to put inside this card, and I stamped Danny's name on the front. What child doesn't like to see their name in print?


Here is one of the tags that I put inside. My husband said when he was a little boy, around 8 years old, someone wrote this out for him and asked him to read it. Can you figure out what it says? I thought it matched the little owls I stamped everywhere! He said he has never forgotten that saying, so I thought a 6 year old boy would love it too.

Below are the tags that I put inside the card. I had some journaling tags that I had printed with my computer. I put sticky tape on the back so he can write on them and then stick them somewhere (his bed? his mirror? the wall?). I thought he would get a kick out of drawing or writing on little cards!

This shows how tiny the album is. The card measures 5x7.

I think you can still send Danny cards. The address was posted on Facebook, so I'm putting the envelope here with his address on it.

This was so much fun to make and it felt good to give a little something to a sweet little boy who asked for so little, and ended up getting so much.  And I thought of Eric the whole time I was making this cute little boy card, because he was such a thoughtful and giving young man.

Maybe you can make or send a card to Danny too.

 

Hexagons and Sunflowers.

In honor of the warm summer days we're having now in Central Oregon, I thought I'd try a fun little hexagon "quilted look" card. For some reason, I love hexagons!  And how does this card remind me of sunflowers you ask? Read further.......  

I used a bright golden yellow for the card base (A2 size). I then cut a piece of scrap cardstock approximately 5" x 3-3/4" to lay my hexagons on. I cut out 19 little 1 inch hexagon shapes using my Cricut cutting machine. There ARE hexagon punches out there so that would also be an easy way to do this.  In fact, a hexagon punch is definitely on my wish list!

I picked summery colors for my hexagons in about 6 different designs. I used double sided paper so only chose 3 colors and used both sides of the paper. Remind  you of sunflowers yet??

Here's a close-up of the cute little hexies all snuggled side by side. 

All I did was start adhering the hexagons on my piece of cardstock, starting at the center top, and working outward. I used fast drying glue but you could also use adhesive tape. Just let them hang over the edge on the sides and bottom, and when it's mostly covered except for little side areas, trim all the sides and use the little leftover pieces to fill in the side areas.  Very fast and easy! 

Another fun thing I did was to emboss the finished piece once all the hexagons were adhered and it had dried. I have one Cuttlebug embossing folder and no embossing machine!  A Cuttlebug machine is on my "wish list". So I got the bright idea to use my pasta machine (which I originally bought for flattening out polymer clay, and have never used for that!) to run the embossing folder through.  I had seen this done on You Tube somewhere.

 
I set my pasta machine so the folder would just barely run through, put my pieced paper in, and cranked it through (it was hard to crank but it worked with some elbow grease). And voila! a beautifully embossed piece!

My little sentiment is one I thought up and printed out from my computer onto some nice white cardstock. I trimmed it and matted it on black. I also used some black glitter paper for a strip down the right side and the little scroll that I cut out using my Cricut cutting machine. The hexagon covered piece of cardstock is matted with black cardstock measuring 5-1/4" x 4". I love the black with the sunny yellows and oranges..... so like summer and reminds me of sunflowers! 

From BeginningAGarden.com

On the inside, I glued a piece of white cardstock with a little leftover strip of hexagons that I had cut off to make the 5x3-3/4  piece fit better onto the black cardstock.

Give this technique a try. It's so fun! Since I love quilting with fabric, anything I can do to make my card looked quilted I really enjoy.  I thought of putting some little stitch marks around the hexagons but it might have been too busy looking.

I think some squares of pieced hexies would look great on a scrapbook page. Can you think of any other ways to use this technique?
 
And speaking of hexagons, I'm just about ready to post my tutorial for my awesome HEXAGON BOXES. Coming soon!