A Pink Christmas Card

The first Jingle Belles challenge in October is always to create a pink Christmas card for breast cancer awareness.  The Belles, Stephanie and Lauren, each donate $2.00 for each entry to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.  Although I am not a fan of all the October pink packaging that is essentially a marketing tool to sell more product, I can get behind this because the only entity that will profit financially from this challenge is the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.  Also in honor of breast cancer awareness the Dragonfly Dreams challenge theme for October is In the Pink and the Cut It Up theme is pink.  I have quite a few friends and family members, including my mother, who are survivors thanks to early detection, so please make sure to do your monthly breast exams, and if you are of that age, go in annually for your mammogram or as I like to call it, The Big Squeeze.  In all seriousness, modern technology has made the process less uncomfortable than it was when I first started getting them, and a few minutes of discomfort is worth it if it saves your life.   The American Cancer Society has information about risk factors and lifestyle measures you can take to reduce reduce the odds of getting breast cancer.   Now enough of the preaching, let's get on to the card.

I started with this Freshly Made Sketch:

I used a layering die set from Birch Press Design, Frosty Flake, to cut one A and  two C layers from white cardstock and a B layer from pink foil from Stampin' Up's Love You Always  paper pack.   I used washi tape from a tube I bought at Michael's years ago to make the stripes, folding the ends under the panel, and filled the spaces in between with thin stripes of the pink foil.  I glued a bit of the washi tape behind some of the openings in the snowflake to tie it in to the stripes.  Knowing  that the snowflake would overlap the stripes, I filled the openings of the points of the bottom C layer with the negative pieces to keep the stripes from showing though and making it too busy.  The word joy, cut from a Spellbinders die, is in honor of a paper crafting friend who is the home stretch of her battle with breast cancer.  Her motto has been "Find the joy."  I attached the panel to a white card base and embellished the snowflake with a pink sparkle and some clear bitty sparkles.

Thank you for stopping by!  Now please make sure to do what you can to reduce your risk of breast cancer and to detect it early if you do get it.  Until Next time, Hansi