Monday, October 18, 2010

Orange and Pink Challenge (Long Post)

At the end of September, Tami (one of the Lead Fiskateers) posted that she was looking for a few crafters willing to take on a color challenge on the Fiskateers Message Board.She had something planned that she wanted to highlight a few projects in a certain color theme. The only restriction was the color combo. I emailed her right away & was one of the lucky ones chosen to be in this color challenge. I can post this to my blog now as my projects are up on the Fiskateer Blog and can be seen here: http://www.fiskateers.com/blog/2010/10/17/pink-and-orange-go-together-in-gift-items/

I was a bit surprised when I got notice of the color combination that we were to work with. Pink & Fiskateer Orange!! I’ve never worked with that combination before & never would have thought that the two colors would look good together. It sure surprised me. Pink & Orange do go together.

Since this challenge was for Breast Cancer, I knew immediately what I wanted to do. For those of you who follow my blog, you know that my older sister Donna is a 3 times Breast Cancer survivor, so Breast Cancer Awareness is very dear to my heart. Pink and Orange are not normally colors that I work with so creating something with these colors was a challenge for me. The inspiration for this challenge came from items that I created for my sister at the time of her battle with Breast Cancer as well as a couple of items she would have used if I had of thought of making them at the time of her battle.

A year ago my sister was diagnosed with Breast Cancer (her 3rd time) after 20 yrs of being cancer free. Hearing of her diagnosis, I bought this cancer stamp set to create a card for her and hopefully give her some encouragement and strength to fight this horrible disease again. For the challenge, I have created 3 different card styles shown in the photo. I used Yellow Bicycle DSP which just so happened to have Pink & Orange in it as well as glitter on the page, my Fiskars Trimmer, Scissors and the Fiskars Threading Waters Border Punch.Next I created an altered journal for her. I wish that I had of thought of creating one for her at the time she was battling cancer. At the time I told her that she should write down her thoughts, etc as she has quite the story to tell about her fight with cancer. During her first battle with cancer 20 yrs ago, they over radiated her & now she is left with a heart condition that she is going to need open-heart surgery on in the near future. She never knew this until the results came back from her pre-op tests a year ago. Since I didn’t think at the time to create a journal for her, I did it for this challenge & gave it to her at Thanksgiving (our Canadian Thanksgiving was October 11th). I again used Yellow Bicycle DSP, my Fiskars Trimmer and Scissors. I also made little tabs for her to write on & set up dividers for her journal if she wishes. I also added an inside pocket at the front of the journal for her to keep any receipts, doctors cards, etc in. I covered the inside back of the journal and added the Survivor verse. I added a verse to the front cover as well as a Velcro closure and trimmed it with lace to finish it off. The lace is so pretty & has little hearts on it.The next item added to this gift is a medical information journal that I got the inspiration for while being a patient in our local Emergency Room. I used 2 coasters for the cover of each mini journal, the pages I printed up in Microsoft Word and the DSP is again Yellow Bicycle. I used my Fiskars Trimmer to trim down the pages to 4x4, glued the DSP to the coasters, trimmed the excess with my Fiskars Fingertip Craft Knife as well as sanded the edges. I didn’t do a lot of fussing with these mini journals as if your purse is anything like mine, they’ll take a beating. Lol I made 3 of these little medical journals and will be giving the other 2 to my sister & my mother.

Last on the list was Thank You cards. When my sister was recuperating from her surgery, her daughters arranged with family & friends to bring in meals to them for a couple of weeks. I thought it was an awesome idea. Donna’s husband was her rock & he was really good about cooking breakfast & lunch but he’s never been one to plan & cook supper. Having meals brought in gave her the time she needed to recuperate with out the stress of meal planning & being in the kitchen. Most meals that were brought in usually gave them leftovers for the next day. Living 45 miles away from them it wasn’t easy taking in a meal. My mother & I took a supper in for them as well as I left them some money to order take out food for another night. I decided to surprise Donna with a dozen Thank You Cards that she could send out to family, friends, etc for the meals, etc. This saved her the added stress of not having to go out & shop for cards. I know that she appreciated it.As you can see, my inspiration for the Pink & Orange Challenge is my sister & her fight against Breast Cancer. All the items I’ve created are items that someone fighting cancer could & would use. All are items that I gave my sister as well as a new journal & medical journal that I wish I had of given her at the time (she has them now). I’m so thankful that my sister won her fight against breast cancer & is a Survivor.My prayers go out to all of you who are fighting this horrible disease or who have family/friends fighting it.

Thanks for looking & have a great day!

1 comment:

Bonnie Weiss said...

These projects are terrific, Diane and the thoughtfulness behind them is very special.