National Childhood Cancer Awareness Day

Did you know that today is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Day? Unless you’ve had someone affected by this horrible disease, you might not have realized this.

Did you know:
• Cancer is the #1 cause of death by disease in children, cutting short the lives of more children under the age of 20 than any other disease.
• 1 child out of 5 who is diagnosed with cancer dies.
• 3 out of 5 children suffer from long-term side effects.
• Every school day, 46 young people, or two classrooms of students, are diagnosed with cancer in this country. More than 12,500 children are diagnosed with cancer each year and over 40,000 children and adolescents currently are being treated for childhood cancers.
• The average age of a child diagnosed with cancer is six years old; saving the life of a child with cancer gives our children a future; approximately, 66 years of life’s milestones and dreams to celebrate.
(Taken from CureSearch National Childhood Cancer Foundation FAQ)

Many of you know that my daughter, 10 days before her 4th birthday last year (9/20/2007) was diagnosed with cancer. While she’s currently cancer-free, her journey is far from over. We have met many families that are traveling down the same road of having to watch their child go through things no man or woman should endure, much less a child. It makes you feel quite helpless.

Won’t you stop for a minute today and say a prayer for those children and their families? Give them the strength to battle this monster and balance life. It’s a tough battle and it never seems to end.

If you also are able, would you consider donating for research? I am participating in the CureSearch Virtual Walk for 12,500 to conquer childhood cancer. The 12,500 represents the number of children diagnosed with cancer each year. Every donation, no matter how small or large, brings us one day closer to reaching the day where every child with cancer can be guaranteed a cure. Follow this link if you’d like to donate. (Participant name Dana Jones). I am "walking" in honor of my daughter.

One last thought from Senator Hillary Clinton:

"We have made tremendous strides in the fight against childhood cancer, but far too many children still suffer and lose their lives to this illness. The more we know as a nation the better able we will be to prevent and treat the disease and help those who are battling and surviving pediatric cancers. National Childhood Cancer Awareness Day is an opportunity to reach out to all Americans with the facts about childhood cancer, and this day will be an important symbol of our commitment on all days to find a cure," said Senator Clinton.

Hi and hiatus again for a little while

Hi to my faithful readers! ;) I am sorry that I have been absent so long but things have been crazy for me! My daughter is doing great but will have to have another surgery in a week (a week from yesterday). We are hoping and praying that this will be the end (plus one outpatient procedure) of this journey.

I have been busy. I was able to go on a scrapbook retreat and get over 30 layouts done! Whoo hoo! I have not been making as many cards I would have liked though. I am having a hard time dividing my time (work, husband, kids, family time, crafting etc). I am hoping things settle down soon and praying for a quieter hurricane season!

I made a card for my sisters birthday with Dress Up Lily. I absolutely ADORE this set as there are so many different options with this set. I even used fun flock on the hat to make it soft and fuzzy! Hope you all enjoy!

Birthday Set

While I love to make "stuff," I really want it to be practical and useful. I love pretty things but if it's just going to end up in the garbage, why bother?

With my sister's birthday coming up, I decided to make a note card set for her. I absolutely LOVE Papertrey Ink's stamps and paper (I WANT MORE!) and decided that this would be perfect for a set of note cards for her.

Cards with matching envies:


I even boxed the up, made a matching pen and added some York Peppermint Patties!

What do you think?

Google Reader

I’ve gotten several questions about Google Reader (what it is, how to use it, etc) in response to my blog candy so I thought I’d give a quick summary.

Google reader (www.google.com/reader) is a FANTASTIC tool that houses all your blogs you like to surf (or as I like to say, BLURF!). Gone are the days of having them in your favorites and having to click on them one by one to visit them every day to see if there is a new post. Google Reader takes care of that for you. Much like an email program that highlights “new mail”, Google Reader does the same thing.

To get started, you must have a Google account (but you do not have to have a Gmail account). If you don’t it’s quite simple to set one up. Once logged in, your home screen will appear. Here’s a copy of mine:

Yours will of course look different because you won’t have any blogs set up yet. Here’s the hard part (and I say that very loosely!) You need to collect all the blog addresses to put in here. That is the most labor intensive part (i.e. copy/paste function). Look over to the left side bar and in the middle you’ll see a neon green section with a plus sign that says Add Subscription. Just click on it and you’ll see this appear:

All you have to do now, is paste in one of your addresses (or mine for instance – www.mytreasuredcreations.blogspot.com). I chose for this example to add Making Memories blog(http://makingmemories.typepad.com/ ) I typed in the blog address then hit the Add button. This is what came up:

Depending on the blog you may or may not have unread items. If you do, then they’ll appear in the screen where it says “Making Memories” has no unread items.” If you want to view all of the blog entries you can click on View All Items. You’ve just added your first blog! How easy was that? Just do it as many times as you have blogs.

Now you can also organize your blogs as well by putting them in folders. If you see in the golden color bar where it says “You have subscribed to “Making Memories.” There is a button that says Add to a folder…. You can add it to an existing folder (if you have one), create a new one or leave as is. I like to organize mine on topic. I have photography/Photo Shop tutorial blogs, Scrapbook, Stamping, Friends, and even company blogs (like Making Memories). I even have a folder for new blogs I found and entered blog candy (so I remember to check back to see if I won!) This makes it much easier for me to locate a blog I want. It also allows me to not have to read ALL my blogs at one time if I don’t want to. I can choose a folder and only scroll through those. If you forget when you add a blog to put it in a folder (or you want to create one later, just click on the Feed Settings tab and go down to the third section where you folders are listed or choose at the bottom New Folder.

A couple notes. When you scroll through a blog, it now marks it as read and when you refresh your reader, it’s gone. SO, if you find something of value, you’ll need to figure a way to remember it. If you want to visit the blog (i.e. to leave comments or blog candy), you can click on the name of the blog entry in your reader window or on the name of the blog at the top and it’ll take you directly to the blog.

I’ve only scratched the tip of Google Reader and I know there must be more tips out there so how ‘bout YOU all give me some? What features could I be using? Also, was this helpful for you?

Happy Father's Day!

Remember the cards I posted here? Well, I was blurfing (blog surfing) and found this post of a really cool wallet and just HAD to do it for my amazing hubby! Here is how it turned out.

Outside is embossed with my $2 stamp It's Good To Be King from Big Lots:

Inside is embossed with Cool Dad and Man of the Year (again from Big Lots!).

In the wallet itself is a picture of S (the youngest) on pink cardstock (her favorite color) and E on yellow ( her favorite color), a Starbucks gift card, a Happy Father's Day card and of course there has to be green in the wallet right?

Hope you all had a wonderful day!

Kim's Creative Corner Challenge

I'm a faithful reader of Kim's blog and decided to take her challenge. I love her owl card here and that black and green color inspired me to use the same colors on mine.

Here's mine:

I made this for a good friend of mine who is so thoughtful. Since my daughter was diagnoised with cancer, she has been checking in with me, just to see how she's doing and making sure I'm alright. She also coordinated meals after we came home from her surgery in NY and decorated our house! I know that if I need any help all I have to do ask. She ROCKS!

Sweet Pea

One of the gals from the girls playgroup had a little baby boy on Wednesday so I had to make card to welcome him. This is the same mom that I made 30+ invites for the baby shower here. I used my $1 Studio G Sweet Pea stamp, American Crafts ribbon, and Sandy Lion Lollia Paper. I used the rectangular and scalloped rectangle nestabilities for the blue mat and the stamped image. I paper pieced the blue baby blanket but that's hard to see in the picture. Isn't it cute?