I had a lot on my mind the day my friend Laura called me. My treatments were over and I was waiting to see if the chemo had worked. I was facing an unknown future and lots of “what if’s” flooded my mind. I had been feeling great but the waiting for results is often challenging. As I waited, my mind turned to projects that I wanted to take care of at home, just in case the results weren’t what I was hoping for.

As I spoke to Laura that day, I thought about asking her to come and visit me. Whenever she does visit, it always blesses me so. Laura is a great listener and she has such a kind and caring heart. Laura also gives great advise and I knew she could help me tackle some of the projects that were consuming my mind.

Although I know she loves visiting Hawaii, I didn’t think the timing was good. You see, she had just been on an extended trip to California and Mexico. So I decided, despite how I was feeling, I wasn’t ‘going to ask her to come.

As Laura and I finished our conversation that day she asked, “so, when do you want me to come to Hawaii to visit you”?, Without hesitation, I responded, “Could you come tomorrow”??

Three days later, Laura’s plane landed at the Honolulu airport! What an incredible blessing it was to have her here.

Laura is one of the gifts that being a part of Stampin’ Up! has brought into my life. In July, I celebrated my 20th year with Stampin’ Up! and this month, Laura is celebrating her 20th year. It’s kind of amazing how blessed my life has been because of all the people who I’ve come to know and love through my association with Stampin’ Up!. I feel so grateful.

Over the years when Laura and I have met up at Stampin’ Up! events, we have a tradition of taking a photo together. I get close to her and take a bunch of her long and beautiful hair and drape it over my head. Shortly after she arrived in Hawaii we recreated this pose once again.

We laughed as we thought this time I actually did need to use her hair as a wig since I am bald from the chemo treatments!!

We had such a nice visit together. We got projects done around the house and doing so gave me such peace of mind. We even found time to go into my studio to stamp. That is something I haven’t done much of in the past 10 months. As we stamped together, I asked her, “do you think we could pull off a couple of stamping events while you are here”. She enthusiastically replied, “YES”.

So we got to work designing projects for Valentine’s Day. We used products from the From My Heart suite to create Bunco favors and Inspiration Night projects.

Here is what we created for Inspiration night.

The box on the right was created using our retired envelope punch board. Inside the box were three mini valentine cards that were created using our new Stitched So Sweetly Dies. The first one featured an image from the Heartfelt Stamp Set that had been punched out with our coordinating Heart punches. The stamped arrow was hand cut using Paper Snips and attached to the back with a Mini Glue Dot.

The Designer Paper on all the projects is gorgeous. It is called From My Heart and several of the pages have foil accents which make this paper shine! All three Valentines also feature our From My Heart faceted gems which come in a variety of sizes and are Flirty Flamingo, Real Red and Whisper White in color to match the colors of the From My Heart Designer Series Paper.

The next valentine used a different image from the Heartfelt Stamp Set and all of the same embellishments listed above.

The final mini valentine had a front and back to it. On the front I stamped the words, “Roses are red”, so I decided to create a heart shaped rose by stamping a small heart, adding a faceted gem and drawing a stem and leaf with a Granny Apple Green Blends Marker.

Here is the back of the card.

As you can see below, all three valentines fit perfectly in the little box and were wrapped with an embellished belly band.

The heart shaped tin on the left is actually made of foil and you can bake something in it if you want. The decor on the tin was similar to one of the mini valentines. The only difference is that I added one of our new adorable Heart Shaped Doilies.

I added strawberry filled chocolate heart candies inside and laid them on a bed of Flirty Flamingo Card Stock that I ran through a paper shredder.

A few nights later at our Inspiration Night, we created all of the projects above. That same night I also had Laura share about what she loves about Stampin’ Up! It was so wonderful to hear her story and to feel so blessed that someone as special as she is has been with me for all these years.

Everyone loved hearing from her and having her with us. It was special for me to see the tears shed at the end of the night when it was time to say bye to her. Laura is such a beautiful soul with a very kind and loving heart.

A few days after Laura went back to her home on the East Coast, I got together with friends Mary and Zeny. Inspired by the projects Laura and I created, we used some of the left over supplies to make more mini valentine cards.

There was lots of love in my studio that day. As we created over 100 mini valentines together.

I found these heart shaped bowls from Target and filled them up with these tiny treats. You can’t see it in the photo but we added a heart shaped chocolate candy to the back of each one of the mini cards.

This week I had to go to the hospital almost every day for a variety of tests and procedures. I carried these mini valentines bowls with me and I left one at the Cancer Center, one at my Oncologists office and one at Hope Lodge, Hawaii. I also carried a small bag with extras to pass out to other people I encountered at the hospital. It was fun to see the smiles on the faces of people who were blessed to receive an unexpected treat.

Although having stage 4 Lymphoma has not been fun, there are some parts to it that have been very, very good. One of those things is the love I have felt from so many people. People like Laura, whom I know well and others who I have never met, yet who have taken the time to demonstrate love in kindness in their words and actions.

One of the lessons I’ve learned on this journey is that we aren’t guaranteed to be here tomorrow, so it’s important to let those around you know how much you love them. It doesn’t have to be Valentine’s Day to share love with others. We can show love and kindness daily to people we know and even those we don’t know. The world is full of people who are going through challenges and by sharing love and kindness with others, we can make the world a brighter place.

On Valentine’s Day and every day, I want to love, support and encourage others in the same way that Laura did when she traveled to Hawaii to love, support and encourage me. I hope today you will know how loved you are and be inspired to share love and kindness to those who come across your path.

Happy Valentine’s Day!
With love and many blessings,

Cindy

Love Laura

Stamped With Aloha

Love Laura

Faith Over Fear

Good News!

Stamped With Aloha