Giving Tuesday: NICU Ornaments

After my nephew Sawyer's stay in the NICU one year ago tomorrow, I have a very special place in my heart for those families going through the nightmare of a NICU stay.  I have actually witnessed several friends waiting with heavy hearts, watching their tiny little blessings from Heaven struggle for every breath.  Each time I found myself at a loss of what to do to ease the pain.

My sweet sister, knowing that the anniversary of Sawyer's NICU stay was coming up, asked if I would help her make some ornaments she could take up to Children's Hospital of Minneapolis to give to the families there.  Just about every day during her family's stay sweet gifts of comfort and community were dropped off at the nurse's stations to brighten the family's days.  

Kallie's family got just a glimmer of joy each day at the prospect of receiving the small gifts.  Even just that moment of happiness during the day of struggle was a relief.  Kallie really wanted to give that gift of joy to other families, and she thought these keepsake ornaments would be the ticket.

Knowing that not all babies are as lucky as Sawyer, getting to go home in the loving arms of his family, we didn't want to say "Ya!  You made it" or anything like that.  We hoped that this ornament could be a small, silent memory for those who lose their babies, as well as for the families that left the hospital triumphant.  

My favorite part of these ornaments is the small pair of footprints inside.  It is crazy to think, with the footprints being not even 2" tall, that some of those babies have feet smaller than the ornament's footprints themselves.

I love these sweet feet.  My little guy Sawyer, he was only two weeks early, so he had pretty average sized feet for a newborn, it was his lungs that were in such bad shape.

Anyway, forgive me if this post makes no sense at all.  There hasn't been much sleep this holiday selling season, but there have been many moments of weepy gratitude for all the joy granted by having Sawyer in our lives.  He is such a blessings from heaven and I am so grateful for the knowledgeable medical staff, the answered prayers, and the flat out miracles that made his life possible.  Thanks to the care he got in the NICU, today I get to hoist my little nephew into the air today, listen to his bubbly laugh and soak up his slobbery kisses.

I will say the smiles we got when we passed out ornaments in the NICU were wonderful! It was so nice to walk in with smiles instead of the tears from when I first stepped foot into the NICU. We got this comment from a recipient of an ornament:

 I was lucky enough to get one of these beautiful ornaments yesterday. Thank you so much it's

 something we will keep forever ! My little Evan was flown in the day before thanksgiving and it 

has been so scary being 3 hours from home. It was such a sweet thing for you to do !

How sweet of that mom to take time to say thank you too.  Poor thing.  We have been there, hoping and praying and we hope and pray for your little one too.

That leads me to the second ornament we made.  The NICU Graduate ornament!

Cute little Sawyer just touched our hearts when we got to bring him home.  Listen to me!  You would think he were my boy.  Well...he is.  It is funny how much you can love one little guy when he didn't even pop out of your own body ;0}  

I posted about Sawyer's story last year here at 

Babies and Blessings.

We had two weeks of torture, then months of cuddly bliss.

Even though this poor boy has spent many a day back in the hospital struggling from issues with his lungs, and is now on oxygen on a regular basis, we are so excited to think back to that day he got to go home.  This ornament is meant to be a keepsake for all those tiny little NICU uniform pieces.  The tiny hat, medical bracelet, etc. can all fit inside the ornament and be kept as a reminder of the triumph.

After all this little guy has been through, each smile is such a blessing to me.  I am totally excited to have made a sweet place to keep all those little things that remind me just how blessed we are.

I AM his favorite Aunt, you know.

Just sayen'.

Sorry everyone else!

Anyway, Thanks Kallie for letting me take part in your gift.  I am super excited it fell right on the calendar in time to participate in #GivingTuesday.  You can go here to find out more about that ;0}

I have had several people contact me and ask if I am selling these ornaments on my etsy site.  I am.  I try to keep things totally reasonably priced, and feel really guilty even mentioning that they are for sale, but mainly want to give a place for moms and others to find the ornaments if they want them.  You can email me at vanessa.cam5@gmail.com or visit my Etsy site, TheBubbleBox for more details.  I will have a brief tutorial posted just after this post for those that order just vinyl to make these ornaments.  Again, sorry for the sales junk here.  Selling them was not my intention, just a response to several requests ;0}

Need a service opportunity???  Call your local hospital to see if they have a NICU.  Those families, even though you will probably never hear from them, will hold you in a special place in their hearts for making the effort to bring joy and comfort to such a difficult time!

Walmart's Food Pantry Holiday Makeover

Want to make a difference this holiday season???

Don't have a ton of time or money to donate???

I just learned about the perfect opportunity for you.  Walmart has teamed up with TheMotherhood.com to spread the word about their Food Pantry Holiday Makeover campaign. Check it out...

Walmart's Food Pantry Holiday Makeover campaign is a nationwide campaign calling on the public to help support their local food pantries this holiday season. The campaign will provide $1.5 million in grants to winning food pantries for facility makeovers. They can use the grants to purchase items like new kitchen and storage equipment, furniture, paint, or other supplies that are needed to support food pantry operations and, in turn, the families they serve.

So I clicked on over to Walmart's Food Pantry Holiday Makeover page and found it SO EASY to vote.
I went to www.walmart.com/holidaymakeover and it looked something like this:

Now all you need to do is click on the bubble at the bottom of the page, the one in the green box, and add your state or location.  

I put my little MN for Minnesota in the box, hit enter, and my options appeared before my eyes.

To tell you the truth, I don't know much about any of the food pantries, so I just picked one that was close to me and clicked "vote".  You can see they have some videos you can watch down below the voting boxes.  

Don't forget!  You can come back and vote once in each 24 hour period until December 12th!!!

Serving in your community doesn't get much easier than that.

Don't forget to share all about it!  The more voters the merrier ;0} 

Feel free to use the hashtag #HolidayMakeover

The campaign will run online from Monday, December 2 (12:01 a.m. EST) to Friday, December 12 (11:59 p.m. EST). The 75 food pantries with the most votes at the end of the voting period will each receive a $20,000 grant. The winning food pantries will be announced on December 15.

Thank you Walmart and TheMotherhood.com for enlisting me to spread the word about your Food Pantry Holiday Makeover. It is so awesome to see large corporations taking the time to serve in our communities and making it so easy for us to join along!

***This was a sponsored post.  While I was compensated for my time and efforts to properly review the information presented, the opinions of the product expressed here were my own.

NICU Graduate Ornament

This is a little tutorial for my customers who purchase the NICU Graduate ornament and need a little walk through on how to put it together ;0}

You got two pieces of vinyl in the mail.  That is all you need, in addition to the 4" ornament of choice, to make your NICU Graduate ornament.  

First you will peel the white paper backing off of the black lettering portion.  Line up the letters over the heartbeat so that it looks like this...

Be aware that the heartbeat piece will jump off the table due to static and try to stick to your lettering transfer tape in very odd places.  You may want to either have someone help you by holding it down to the table, or use a little bit of scotch tape to tape that heartbeat paper down before trying to position the lettering on top.  I would be happy to do this step for you if you would like.  Just let me know when you order.

When you get the heartbeat situated on the lettering transfer tape, lie the lettering on the table, non-sticky side down, and rub the white paper down.  You want the red heartbeat to be fully pressed into the transfer tape.

When you are done, pull the white paper tape off of the heartbeat and you are ready to attach it to your ornament.  

I like to use a roll of packing tape to hold the ornament while I work.  I am sure there are thousands of things around your house that might work if you don't have packing tape handy, even a bowl or a cup.  It just helps if you can put the ornament down and use both hands without the ornament rolling away on you.

So, I put a roll of packing tape on it's side, set a glass ornament in the center hole, and get my vinyl all ready to attach.  Line the letters up, judging by the opening at the top of the ornament, and press down the word "Graduate" ONLY.

I took this awkward picture so you can see that the "Graduate" word is pressed down, but not the lines above or below it.

Now listen carefully!!!  I push down "Graduate", then pull the left and right sides back up.  The black vinyl letters should stay attached to the ornament.  If they don't, just push the transfer tape back down, rub the letter down a bit better, and then pull the tape up again.  Once in a while I have to use my fingernail or something to hold on to the vinyl while pulling the tape off when the vinyl gets an attitude about sticking.

So, pull the sides of the transfer tape back up off the ornament so that it is only attached still for the letters "D" and "U" or somewhere around there.  Now push down the letter "C" in NICU.  You want to rub from the bottom of the "C" in an upward direction.  You can pull the transfer tape off the "U" in Graduate now, and push down the letter "I" in NICU.  Try and keep an eye on the red line of the heartbeat and make sure it is staying in the middle of the two words.  When you get to the "N" you will need to pull the letter up a little bit or it will look like it is bowing downward.  Pull the "N" up a tad, the press down to the glass from the bottom of the "N" to the top.  Peel the left side of the transfer tape off the ornament until the "C" and we are ready to do the other side.

At this point, I like to push the heartbeat bottom line down all the way.  Don't push the heart down first.  Rub the line in place, then rub from the bottom point of the heart straight up to the top point of the heart, that spot between the humps ;0}  Once that is down, you can push the humps down rubbing from the center of the heart to the outer left and right sides.  Basically you need to start at the center and rub left, then start at the center and rub right again.

Is this all necessary???  Only if you want it to look good.  There is a science to applying vinyl to the outside of a curved object!!!

Now, pull the transfer tape off the right side of the heartbeat and go ahead and push the "U" down from the bottom to the top.  "It's all about the Bass, the bass, the bass, No Treble"  Yep.

If you stop there it will look like this.  You can just stop there and go for a coke break if you need to ;0}

When you have recovered, grab your transfer tape 'cause we need to finish the date!

If you took your tape off the ornament, you need to center the date under "Graduate".  If you left it on there, work from the center of the date, one number at a time, rubbing from the top to the bottom for this line.  The other thing that is different for this one is that you need to pull the far left and right of the line down instead of up to keep it looking straight.

Soooooo, press down the "0" and the "1", from the top to the bottom, then focus on one side.  I start with the left 'cause I am crazy AND left handed.  That must be why, right ;0}  Anyway, I take the "2" and pull it down just a bit to make it look straight.  You might have to take the transfer tape off of the "1" in order to get the stretch to move the "2" down.  When the "2" is in place, pull the transfer tape up, leaving it attached in the middle of the date, and pull that "4" down just a bit before rubbing it down.

YOU DID IT!

DONE!

Now you just need to put your keepsakes, or write a daily thought each day baby is in the hospital or something fabulously sentimental like that and put them inside the ornament.  A white bead for each day inside the NICU would work too.  Whatever thumps your heartstrings.

I hope that helps you make this lovely keepsake.  I found that Walmart sells the 4" plastic ornaments for $.97 back in the Christmas section if you are looking for plastic, otherwise I highly recommend Hobby Lobby between July and December 15th for the "Make It Christmas" brand ornaments.  They have a lovely iridescent sheen to them that makes the ornaments just look amazing.

Let me know if you have any other questions.  If you have not ordered your vinyl yet and want some, you can either email me at vanessa.cam5@gmail.com or order from my Etsy shop, TheBubbleBox.  

Here is the listing for the completed ornaments:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/213888182/nicu-graduate-ornament-completely?

And the listing for just the vinyl decal:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/213890391/vinyl-only-4-nicu-graduate-ornament

Enjoy the moments of your new life outside of the NICU!

Let It Be Christmas!

I ran down to Fairmont just before Thanksgiving and snapped a couple pics.  They sure got me in the Christmas mood!  These kids are adorable.

I am not sure what was going down here, but I think someone was going to snitch on someone else to Santa???  Thoughts?

Found this awesome basket at Hobby Lobby.  Not even sure how!  It was the only one I saw at any of the 5 stores I frequent during ornament season, and it was broken.  I couldn't resist it anyway.  One handle was broken off, so I just took the other one out, smoothed everything down, and snapped away at the shutter.

Can you even get enough of those rolls?  Oh BaBY!

Oh My Heavens!

Cutest Muffin top EVER!!!

I love this kid.

He never makes me work for a smile.  

I should pay HIM to take his pictures :0}

Just A Nibble

My sweet 16 year old daughter Madison made these fabulous cupcakes for her Young Women in Excellence event at the church this past week.  She was all on her own with my crazy order madness lately, but she made it look like they were made by an army of talented bakers.

The event hosted a Wizard of Oz theme.  Madison, a cupcake wars addict, decided to make a cupcake to represent each of the main characters.  Here you can see the silver Tin Man cupcake complete with shimmering frosting and a fondant heart.  Next to that is the Scarecrow cupcake topped with toasted coconut and a fondant straw hat.  On the right is the vanilla Dorothy cupcake with sassy red sanding sugar and a chocolate ruby slipper.

She made a double batch of rice crispy treats, dying the marshmallow mixture green before stirring the cereal in, then cut the Emerald City out of the treats once they had cooled.  She brushed the city with Karo Syrup and then sprinkled green sanding sugar and shimmer flakes to get a shiny appearance.

In this picture you can see the pink Glenda The Good Witch cupcake, with shimmery pink frosting, edible pearls, and a fondant crown/wand combo.  Just behind that cupcake, the flying monkey chocolate cupcake with peanut butter frosting, topped with a fondant tail swirl and bell boy hat.  Down in front is the gold Lion cupcake, also chocolate, with a swirly gold dusted frosting and hair bow {like the bows they put in the lion's mane at the Emerald City}.

In this picture you can see the Wicked cupcake all in green mint frosting and topped with a fondant witch's hat.  

That just leaves the Toto cupcake.  Chocolate with swirly peanut butter frosting and topped with a fondant Toto in Dorothy's basket.

Sorry for the bad pictures!  The dumb phone camera works great some times and terribly at other times :0/

Anyway, the cupcakes turned out so cute!!!  Madison did a great job and her creations sure added to the excitement of the night.  

Annie, one of my Young Women from the class I teach on Sundays planned and put on the whole show tonight as part of her value project.  Great job Annie!  It was all so cute and fun to be a part of ;0}