Monday, April 20, 2015

I Love You To Pieces

Will, age 10, with mom, Elizabeth

April is Autism Awareness month. This is a cause that is near and dear to my family. My son, Will, was diagnosed at age 7, but it was an up hill battle since he was four years old (and really the signs were there from the time he was about a year old). Bill and I are active parents who were telling his doctors, teachers and counselors all along that something was wrong. The pediatrician that we saw was supposedly and expert in child behavior and made us go through parenting classes. Parenting class - without even evaluating Will, because if he had even spent 5 minutes with Will, he would have known something was different. We have never went back to him. Unfortunately, it took Will getting violent in the classroom before we were able to have him tested.

Today Will is doing well! We have wonderful doctors who are working with us, a team of teachers and counselors who are helping us and a wonderful and support group of family and friends who have stood by us. So to my friends out there who are parents - you know your child and you are the only one who can fight for them to get them the help they need.

"Love You To Pieces" Note Card Set

For Autism Awareness month, I designed the "Love You To Pieces" note card set. This set of cards are made to order. For every card set sold, $4 will go to the North Carolina Autism Association in honor of my son Will.

Will at the Run/Walk Autism 5k on September 27, 2014. He was one of the top 10 fundraisers for the event!

Make it Monday - Floral Note Cards

Happy Monday everyone! I'm going to try something new on my blog - a new series called Make It Monday (inspired by a lot of my favorite blogs). In this series, I'll show you how I make one on my creations. It might not be step by step, but it will always include a list of supplies with links to purchase. I encourage you to be a savvy shopper to find the best deals on the items or just use what you have on hand. I hope you enjoy and are inspired!

Floral Note Cards

I just got my Cricut Explore Air a couple of weeks ago and have been playing around experimenting with a few things. I've been so caught up playing that I forgot that I had to make a birthday card and a thank you note. So using my Cricut Explore Air and supplies that I had on hand, I created one design that I modified to use in three different ways!

One thing that I would like to note is the size of the note cards turned out to be about 5.5" x 3.75". You can use a standard A2 envelope, but it won't be an exact match. I used my We R Memory Keepers 1-2-3 Punch Board to create an envelope box for the birthday and thank you note cards with the 3-D flowers. It wasn't a perfect fix, but it will do for now.

In case you are wondering the difference between the Cricut Explore and the Cricut Explore Air - the Air has built-in Bluetooth technology so I can wirelessly connect both my laptop and iPad!