Layton's Legacy Card Drive & Fundraiser Blog Hop

Today, we have the great honor of joining a special Card Drive & Fundraiser, created by Lea Lawson in honor of her sweet son, Layton Caleb (pictured below). You can learn more about Layton's life over on Lea's blog, the starting point of today's event. Lea has an incredible heart for the parents currently at the NICU hospital, where Layton received his care. As an avid papercrafter, Lea joined together many craft industry friends, so we can help show a bit of kindness to families going through incredibly hard days.

The fundraising dollars will go to purchase substantial Starbucks gift cards that will be given to NICU parents. Why Starbucks? There is one just across the street from the hospital and will allow parents a moment to step out of the hospital, get a breath of fresh air and regroup. Lea said, "I was given a $20 Starbucks card that had been donated to the NICU during the time Layton was a patient, and I cried when I opened it. My son was getting million dollar care, and I was there day in & day out doing everything I could for him. It was stressful, scary, and one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. Getting that gift card felt like someone was also thinking about us, and trying to help take care of us too."

Together we can accomplish SO much! Plus - we are making it fun! Join our Card Drive blog hop in Layton's honor, with tons of amazing inspiration! We also have a fundraising effort, where every $5 donated gets you an entry into the prize drawing. There are over $2,000 in prizes, sponsored by some of the most amazing stamping & papercrafting companies in the industry! {You can also see all the prizes HERE.}

WAYS YOU CAN HELP:

1. DONATE! - Directly to Layton's Legacy YouCaring Fundraiser. For every $5 you donate, you will be entered into the drawing for one of the prizes above!! All winners will be drawn from donations made thru the YouCaring Site. **Prizes will be drawn and announced here on Lea's Blog on Saturday, May 19th.**

2. SHOP! - You can find details on sales and affiliate donations on Lea's Blog!

3. CREATE! - This is also a card drive, and if you'd like to create a card using the theme/moodboard below, that would be amazing! Lea will be including these handmade treasures with the gift cards when she hands them over to the NICU social worker, and Lea's dream is that the NICU will be covered in beautiful creations inspired by Layton! Link up your cards HERE, and then please email Lea (lea@lealawsoncreates.com) to get the address for sending - and note that she will need them to arrive by May 31st.

BLOG HOP

Not only is this a fundraiser, but also a super inspiring blog hop with MANY stops along the way! As you hop along, you will see amazing cards created with a very special theme. Lea created this moodboard when she started planning Layton's nursery. We can't wait to see all the beautiful creations in honor of him!

Our fabulous designers created some awesome inspiration for the blog hop and we hope you enjoy their designs!

From Dana Warren: I went with the woodland part of the challenge, using a birthday stamp for an encouragement card! I started by stamping and die cutting the owl from the new Owl Flutter set. Then I used my Spectrum Noir Markers to color each image. I used AP1, BO2, BO4, RB1, RB2, RB4, Blender. Then I followed the directions from the packaging to assemble the owl and the pull tab. From some old Jillibean Soup Camper themed paper I cut a square from the woodland pattern. I cut a slit in it and threaded through the pull tab. With foam tape, I adhered the owl and added foam tape to the back of the square, including making a 'track' for the pull tab. Next, I added some matching green polka dot pattern paper to a white card base. From some woodgrain paper, I masked and stamped the sentiment to read Wishing You OWL the Best! I added the woodland square with the owl to the top right corner and then added the sentiment below this with foam tape too. You can see the photos below, the owl's wings up and then down!

From Jil Lebel: I used the Shepherd Window 4986 block stamp from Hobby Lobby. I used the mood board combined with my papers to pick my colors. In the end, my colors strayed quite a bit from the mood board, but I really like how everything ended up. I Stamped the Shepherd Window stamp onto Canson XL Watercolor paper with Jet Black Archival Ink. I painted the image using Marvy LePlume II markers that I scribbled onto the Ai travel palette. I just added the color to my paper in light layers until I had the depth of color I was looking for. I used Black 1, Olive green 15, Prussian Blue 29 and Brownish Grey 40 to color in my image. Once the image was colored, I cut it out along the straight lines because the words weren't very clear on the watercolor paper. I stamped another image with Onyx Black Versafine ink onto smooth white paper and attached the colored square over the words.

On the card, the top layers edge was cut with a die from the Tim Holtz Stitched Oval set. The oval die is the Double Stitched Oval STAX from MFT. The word hugs is from Momenta. I made an Ai 3-D frame from American Crafts Cedar Lane 6x6 patterned paper. All of the edges are inked with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. The frame is lined with a piece of patterned paper from the Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid Winter 6x6 Collection. I used foam tape to attach my colored image to the center of the frame.

From Reneé Matarese: I've used 3 Ai sets on the front of my card - 4872 – WC Birds Set, 4966 – WC Bird Bath Set, and 4964 – WC Branches Set. Our task was to make woodland themed cards.  Well...that's right up my alley!  I live in a house surrounded by woods on all four sides and just LOVE animals. Below is the inside of my card where I've used two more Ai watercolor sets - 4874 – WC Bunnies Set and 4903 – WC Sentiments Set. I hope you all take the time to participate in this wonderful blog hop. I have a friend who has had several babies born sleeping and so this cause is special to me.  I wish there wasn't a need for fundraisers like this.

Copics used:

W3, E00, E33, E35, B41, T3, Y28

From Sharon Caudle: My card today features the fun 4741 Turtle Stackers from Art Impressions. I also used the sentiment from 4738 Duck Stackers. I stamped them onto Cryogen White paper and colored them up with Copic markers. Those that know me, know how much I love dimension. So the turtles are popped up off their mat, and then the mat is popped up from the card. And then of course the sentiment is double popped as well. Last thing I did was add a quick bow with May Arts ribbon and called her done!

Copics used: YG91, YG93, YG95, E33, E35, E37, B000, R20

A big thank you to our designers for creating extra special cards for this blog hop! Now on to the blog hop info - here is a link list with all of the stops along the hop! We are truly honored to partner up with so many thoughtful and generous companies! This industry is truly incredible and we love being part of this community of crafters! 

An InLinkz Link-up

Thank you for stopping by! If you're hopping through, your next stop is ...
Betsy Veldman

Happy Stamping!