Couples Therapy: I wish I knew...

If you are in a relationship, have a serious boyfriend/ girlfriend, fiancé or husband/wife please go read this great article and thank me later ;)

Happy weekend all!

40% Discount on my shop to help a sick newborn baby.

Now I'm not one to ask for help very often if ever. But today I'm calling all of you, interwebz buddies to come help me help others. 

It is very heartbreaking to see friends suffering and it's even more frustrating when you can't do anything to ease their pain. I'm doing this to help a close friend of mine who's baby was born last week premature and with a serious congenital heart defect. 

This sweet baby's name is Jacobo and was welcomed at 11:27 on a Saturday night, 2 weeks premature. Soon after he was born nurses noticed that something was not ok with him. After examination it was determined that Jacobo was born with aortic valve stenosis. This means that the valve on his aorta is severely stiffened and narrowed the opening. This causes a big strain and his left ventricle has to pump harder to send the blood out to his little body.  

There are no medications that the doctors can give to this week old baby and even if they could, medications would only ease the pain. The only way this heart defect can be corrected is with heart surgery. While nurses assured the parents that even though the procedure is delicate, it is nothing out of the ordinary, The doctor came bearing some terrible news. Little Jacobo is so tiny and fragile that his heart won't resist surgery, and his situation is only getting worse.

I know we have all felt powerless when we see someone go through horrible things and the only thing left for us to do is just stand there and be witnesses of their pain and grief. I did. And I am. But that's not what I want to do. I don't want to be witness of such sad and tragic things. I want to help lighten the burden his parents are carrying. I want to help them feel like there is life outside what they are going through. They are my friends after all.

My biggest internal battle is that I couldn't seem to find a way to help. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a cardiologist, or surgeon and I don't have the power to heal this poor sweet baby. I'm just a friend. I'm a designer.

But that's it! The way I can help them is by doing what I love and know. That's why I wanted to let all of you know that everything in my shop is now 40% as well as custom designs and every single penny I make this month is going to help pay his medical bills.

I don't have a good pitch to convince you to help me. This is just what it is. I just want to help. So please! Please internet peeps! Help me help this little guy. Let me bring a smile to his parents face.

Please help me find more ways to help them if you can.

Let me make a difference.

DIY: 15 Minute paper heart garland

This is a really simple garland I did today for Amelia's wall. I've been meaning to decorate it with beautiful prints and watercolors and I even got the frames but unfortunately I haven't had a lot of time to order/print/make and that bare wall was beginning to drive me crazy. Today while we were playing 'name the color' with scraps of color paper I took out the scissors and started cutting shapes for her to name. The shape that stood the most for her was the heart. She could recognise the colors a little bit easier on them than on any other shape (not sure why?) so we ended up with lots and lots of little hearts that I didn't want to throw away.

I started with a piece of cardboard and a pen. I drew a small heart and a slightly larger one and cut them out. Next I traced them on every piece of paper that I had. I intentionally tried not to trace them properly so I would end up with different ones as I think it looks prettier and makes it a little more personal.

Once I was done tracing I simply started cutting. Again, trying to not be exact and trying to modify every heart's shape. A couple turned out amazing, others not so much so I had to trim them a little bit to get them to look better. This step was the one that kind of slowed me down (if you can call 4 minutes slowing down) because my scissors where acting stubborn and also Amelia wanted to go take a nap ;)

The next step was simply glueing them together with a little bit of glue stick. I chose to mix them and tried to make the colors clash so it would pop out a little bit more. Arrange them in the order you're going to hang them and then turn them arround. Get ready to attach them to the yarn.

I whipped out my handy dandy glue dots (I love them!) and sticked them on the back of the paper hearts, once I attached the yarn carefully leaving around 2 inches between them (give or take). I soon noticed that my yarn would not stay put and would curl up again so when I turned the garland around, the hearts would turn with it. My solution to this was to put on a little weight on the back of the hearts so it would make them stay where I wanted. I did so by adding a couple of cardboard squares to the back of the hearts using the same glue dots and made sure that the hearts were not bending back. *For future reference: I would think of making the hearts in a heavier material like cardstock or even cardboard.


This is the end result! I intentionally made a small one so when I eventually get around to hanging up all the prints we have laying around I can still hang it there.  Amelia loves her heart garland and actually laid in her crib for hours pointing and screaming at it (homegirl does NOT like staying in her crib unless she has to). She giggles every time I mention the garland so Im pretty sure it was a success. And the best of all? It took only 15 minutes!