Operation Julie's Smile Blog Hop (over $2500 in PRIZES)

***This post has been moved to the top of my blog until the end of the hop on Sunday night. Please scroll down for new posts.***

Hi friends! Boy, do I have a special event for you today! I am honored to be a part of the Operation Julie's Smile blog hop to benefit my friend Julie Ranae. You should have come here from Jennifer Rzasa's blog. If not, go back to the Sweet Stamp Shop blog to start the hop. LEAVE COMMENTS along the way, there are SO many prizes to be won!

Here's the reason we are hopping today:

“The creative blogging community is coming together this weekend to help one of our friends, Julie Ranae. You may know her as the Design Team Coordinator for many wonderful companies from bakers twine, die cuts, rubber stamps and more. What many people don’t know about Julie Ranae is that she has had some pretty major dental surgeries in her lifetime due to medication she had to take as a child. It was in her plans to think about having all of her teeth replaced at some point in the next 5 years, a decision that was pretty easy to plan out. But then it happened…she chipped her front teeth on a weekend a month ago. The dentist told her there was no way to save them & that it was his recommendation that she give in and have them all her teeth removed soon, but for that day, they needed to get her front teeth done so her gums could begin to heal. He said he would 'work out payments with her to have ALL this work done...but when she called to make her appt for the first step of impressions, they told her the amount of money that was needed and that the 'payments' applied only to the two teeth that were extracted that day. Her husband Paul was with her & that too, was his understanding as well. So this is how she has found herself in this situation…Needing at least $4000 to get started and another $3000 to finish the process…a total of $7000.

Nicole Rixon, owner of Sweet Stamp Shop put together this benefit after finding out about this situation and before Julie Ranae knew it, it took flight!

Because she is an event organizer by trade, she has taken on the job of organizing all of the blogs in this hop as her way of ‘working overtime’ for what she needs, the same as if she were able to work overtime at an outside job to pay for the work to be done.

It is the goal of all of these generous friends & sponsors to help make this situation more do-able for our friend so that she can share a brand new smile with all of us soon.

If there is anything you can do to help with a financial donation, there is a donation button ready for you to click. Any amount is appreciated and ALL DONATIONS will be eligible for prizes from our sponsor pool of over $2500.”

Here's my card for today. When I think of Julie, I always think of her joining her hubby at Barnes and Noble for a cuppa so that's where I got the inspiration for this card. I used Paper Smooches new Hot Concoctions for this card along with some new Free Bird paper from Authentique. The little roses are from my Etsy shop, Heart Hugs Designs. I used Karen's Sweet Sunday Sketch 137 for this card.

MY DONATION: I'm always trying to teach my children to give what we can. For this event, I've donated 1 new in package Ippity Stamp set, a couple sets of cabochons from my Etsy Shop and some seam binding that I dyed myself.

I hope you enjoyed my card! Next up on the hop is MICHELLE MATHEY! Don't forget to leave comments on each stop of the hop for your chance to win one of the amazing prizes! If you can, please make a donation (button is in my sidebar) to help our friend get her smile back.