Operation Julie's Smile

Hello friends, followers & hoppers!  Today I am part of the Operation Julie's Smile Blog Hop to help support our dear crafting friend, Julie Ranae.  If you arrived here from Peggy Sue's Blog, you are in the right place!  The creative blogging community is coming together this weekend to help Julie, who you may know as the Design Team Coordinator for many wonderful companies from bakers twine, die cuts, rubber stamps and more.  This is Julie's story: Julie Ranae has had some pretty major dental surgeries in her lifetime due to medication she had to take as a child.  It was in her plans to think about having all of her teeth  replaced at some point in the next 5 years, a decision that was pretty easy to plan out.  But then it happened…she chipped her front teeth on a weekend a month ago. The dentist told her there was no way to save them & that it was his recommendation that she give in and have them all her teeth removed soon, but for that day, they needed to get her front teeth done so her gums could begin to heal. He said he would 'work out payments with her to have ALL this work done...but when she called to make her appt. for the first step of impressions, they told her the amount of money that was needed and that the 'payments' applied only to the two teeth that were extracted that day. Her husband Paul was with her & that too, was his understanding as well. So this is how she has found herself in this situation…Needing at least $4000 to get started and another $3000 to finish the process…a total of $7000.


Nicole Rixon, the owner of Sweet Stamp Shop, put together this benefit after finding out about this situation and before Julie knew it, it took flight!  Because Julie is an event organizer by trade, she has taken on the job of organizing all of the blogs in this hop as her way of 'working overtime' for what she needs, the same as if she were able to work overtime at an outside job to pay for the work to be done.  It is the goal of all of these generous friends & sponsors to help make this situation more do-able for our friend so that she can share a brand new smile with all of us soon.  If there is anything you can do to help with a financial donation, there is a donation button ready for you to click - just visit The Sweet Stamp Shop Blog and click on the 'Operation Julie's Smile - Donate' button (the complete list of blogs is available there as well, in case you have gotten lost along the way).  We know times are tough for everyone, and any amount is appreciated and ALL DONATIONS will be eligible for prizes from our sponsor pool of over $2500.  You have all weekend to hop around, comment and be eligible for prizes.


Here is the card I made for today's hop.  It uses a sketch (which I flipped) from Jimmi's Circles Sketch for the Hope You Can Cling To over at Splitcoaststampers - a card drive created to generate cards for the cancer patients at MD Anderson Canter Treatment Center and their families to use while they are there in addition to raising overall breast cancer awareness - and a cute stamp from Lili of the Valley:

I added LOTS of glitter to her hat, the edges of her coat, and the ice and colored her in with Copic markers.  I layered three different punches for the sentiment and used some DP from K.I. Memories Holiday Fun stack.  I hope this card will make Julie, and whoever receives it at the hospital, smile.  :)


It also fulfills the requirements of the following challenges:

• Inky Impressions Challenge 17 (IIC27) - Show Your Support/Monochromatic pink,
• Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes, and
• Fab & Funky Challenge - Die cuts or Punches.

I hope you enjoyed your stop here on the hop!  The next stop is Heart Song Inspirations Blog.  Make sure you leave a comment here before you go so that you can have a chance at the amazing prizes up for grabs and if you can, please make a donation so we can help bring back a new smile for our friend!


Thanks for visiting!  I hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend!  :)
~Crafty Math Chick