Post Pals

I recently came across a post on one of my lovely crafty pals Pops Morfitt blog, which introduced me to the wonderful Post Pals initiative. This initiative sees poorly kids receive happy mail to cheer them while they are in hospital or during prolonged illness. It's such an inspired idea and a wonderful reason to get crafty. Add to this the support of talented artist Claire Keay, who sees the benefit of this for the kids and has offered to lend her talents to the cause and you have a wonderful combination of talent and need. You can read all about the support that Claire has offered this cause on her Jellypark Blog.

I visited the Post Pals site, found a young patient I was drawn to create for and have sent off my first Post Pals letter. I don't think what I have to say is that important really, I don't know this little person at all. So rather than write inside the card, as if I had a clue what they are going through and risk saying the wrong thing, I turned it into a sketch book. I added in several white blank pages, sewed them down the spine and then glued them along the back page to insert into the card. It could be used by this young patient to draw in, or as a scrapbook. Hopefully it will help fill boring 'waiting to be seen' outpatient moments. I did of course add a little note to accompany it.

Here's a close up of the lovely image drawn by Claire, with the cutest little sock monkey! I really loved this when I saw it, as my daughter Georgie has a similar sock monkey she was given by one of her Aunty's when she was small and it's very beloved. I actually coloured up the image with my promarkers before choosing my papers and had done the monkey in different colours. But when hunting for a good paper match, I found this fabulous Kaisercraft Bubblegum Hills stripey paper and thought that would be a great fit. I had actually used yellow where you now see the orange, but changed it when I found the paper as the rest of the colours I'd used were such a brilliant match. It's fabulous how easy this was to do with Promarkers.

I made the XO (kiss, hug) sentiment with the offcuts from the Whiff of Joy 'XOXO' border die I used. I didn't want to put 'get well soon' or any other well intended message, if this wee poppet was never likely to get well, so stuck with this simple message of caring. There's not much visible of the border strip itself, but I wanted to add something more than just the image. I needed to keep the card 'flat' so it was easy to post internationally and would be easier to carry around as a sketch-book too. I added some pretty white cotton lace underneath the diecut area as a simple 'flat' embellishment. I used the Whiff of Joy 'Notebook' border die along the left of the image.

I used a pretty Memory Box die with butterflies to add the detail down the side of the image. I rolled glue onto the matt paper behind the image, sprinkled with glitter and then added the image over it. So the butterflies have a wonderful sparkly finish just to make them really pop off the page.

Here's a close-up of the monkey in the image and below is my daughter Georgie's sock monkey - Clementine. A very cute pair I think!

Before having my kiddos, I was a paediatric nurse for many years, so I know how tedious those hours can be for young kids, waiting to be seen by the doctors or just passing the time in hospital. So if I can bring some joy and relief for one or two of these kiddos through Post Pals, I will feel I have done something positive with my crafting this year. My thanks to both Pops for the initial introduction and to Claire Keay for the use of this wonderful Jellypark artwork she has so generously made available for the cause.

Thanks for popping in on my blog today. I hope you've had a great weekend. Do pop on over to Jellypark and see what they are doing for Post Pals. I'll be back again soon with some DT posts. Hugs, Wends x

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