Operation Julie's Smile Blog Hop!

I am so glad that you joined us on this amazing blog hop for Operation Julie’s Smile. If you came here from Christina Maclaren’s blog, then you are in the right spot. If not, you may want to start from the beginning at the Sweet Stamp Shop’s blog and take your time. You have ALL WEEKEND to hop with us and win prizes! With over 120 blogs participating in this hop, there are bound to be some hiccups so if you do find a break, please know that you can find a FULL list of everyone participating at the Sweet Stamp Shop's blog so you don't miss a beat.....and you won't want to with over $2500 in donated prizes!!!! Wowsa!!! Prizes will be drawn from those participating in the hop, those that leave comments on all the blogs and those that also donate - you will find a donate button on each stop along the way. Mine is located at the top of my side bar to the right.

For my card, I used the super sweet Boho Anya stamp by The Greeting Farm. This sentiment is also by The Greeting Farm and jumped out at me because anyone that knows Julie Ranaeknows that she is something special! Oh, BTW, if you have been waiting to pick up your favorite TGF stamps, be sure to get them TODAY because it is FREE SHIPPING FRIDAY and I'm not sure when this will happen again!! Check out TGF Blog for all the details. I actually stepped a bit OUT of my comfort zone and colored on some canvas paper I picked up to try something different. I normally ONLY color on Copic Xpress It Color Card but this was a bit of fun even tho it was VERY difficult to blend and I actually had to go over it quite a bit with my colorless blender to remove a lot of the ink that was just sitting on top and looked out of place. In the end, after letting it sit on my desk and grow on me for a couple weeks, I really like how she turned out. Of course, in looking for a sketch, I looked no further than The Deconstructed Sketch. LOVE these sketches - they are so unique in that I probably would have NEVER placed a big triangle in the middle of my card before! haha

The background of this hop:

“The creative blogging community is coming together this weekend to help one of our friends, Julie Ranae. You may know her as the Design Team Coordinator for many wonderful companies from bakers twine, die cuts, rubber stamps and more. What many people don’t know about Julie Ranae is that she 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, owner of Sweet Stamp Shop put together this benefit after finding out about this situation and before Julie Ranae knew it, it took flight! Because she 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 on the side bar of all the blogs participating including mine. Any amount is appreciated and ALL DONATIONS will be eligible for prizes from our sponsor pool of over $2500.”

I hope you enjoyed your stop here on the hop! The next stop is Jessica Fick's 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.


Challenges I'm Playing:
the Deconstructed Sketch - #22
Paper Crafting Journey - Die Cuts and /or Punches
Fab n Funky - Die Cut/Punches
Truly Scrumptuous - Distressing
Anything Goes Challenge - Die Cuts/Punches

Supplies:

• Boho Anya by The Greeting Farm
• Basic Grey out of print pattern paper
• Papertrey Ink Kraft CS
• Helmar Tape Runner and Zap Dots
• Tim Holtz Tattered Banner Die
• Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher
• MS Lacey Border Punch
• Copics
• Memento Tuxedo Black Ink