Birthday Cards, Body Shop and Cystic Fibrosis

I attended a Mad Hatters Tea Party event today in aid of a little girl called Anya Bentham who is suffering from Neuroblastoma, an awful, very aggressive childhood cancer. Anya is a local girl and the community has pulled together brilliantly to raise money for her treatment. I heard yesterday that £200,000 of the £250,000 target has been raised. This is fantastic but its so sad to know such fundraising is necessary. If you would like more information about her and this terrible illness you can read about it on her just giving page.

I was attending the event as a Body Shop Consultant and have offered to donate all my commission for sales achieved at Anya events. I am a sucker for children and always do what I can for charities. If you are fundraising and would like info on. How I could help please get in touch.

I always over-pack my stall. Today I tried to limit what I put out and I was quite pleased with the final look. Still, room for improvement!

I met a remarkable woman there too. Her little girl had cystic fibrosis and was treated at the same hospital where Joseph had his lip repair, Liverpool's Alder Hey Children's Hospital. If I'm honest I was pretty ignorant about the condition and what it entailed, but she was able to explain how it affected her daughter and the implications for daily life. It made me feel pretty silly having been so concerned about a cleft in Joseph. Despite what she had to deal with, this particular mum had awe and respect for Anya's parents and what they had to go through with their daughter. A couple of days ago I posted a picture of some sentiment plaques I'd made and one of them seemed particularly potent...

I have since been quote hunting and really appreciate these words by Albert Clarke:
“In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the gratefulness that makes us happy."
On a lighter note, I returned from the event to my creation station :o) It is my partner's sisters' 16th birthday this weekend so I needed to make some cards. Being a beginner my materials are only cheap. I love the linen effect cards used by itsallfiddlefart, but I've got a bulk pack of plain white cards from hobbycraft which need to be used first. 

I used glitter and silver card from a bulk pack bought from home bargains or B&M-I bought them a while back so I can't remember where exactly I bought them from or how much they were but I can't imagine it was much more than a couple of pounds for a 20 sheet pack. I cut the squares by hand but this took forever and I wasn't very accurate, which shows in the quality of the finished product I think. I really need to invest in a guillotine-any recommendations?  The little star embellishment was from The Works-I think it was £1.50 for a pack of 6.

I do like this card (I surprise myself sometimes). I always start with one idea in mind and end up with something that looks completely different which I kind of like. I'm really disappointed with how the sentiment stamp turned out. I had to improvise and use my promarker to colour the stamp as I only had dark coloured ink pads.....more thinks to buy!! :o)

I can't help but think this looks better in the photo than it does in real life. I've printed two  monkeys to represent her two cheeky monkey nephews as she likes to call them. I didn't stamp them very well and some of the finer details bled. I also used the wrong sort of ink pad to colour the stamped image. I'm told I need to use Acid based ink....the shopping list gets bigger and bigger!

Body Shopping and crafting was just about complete when my partner arrived home and I was able to have an amazing snuggle with my big, little boy! :oD