Get Well Ethyl

This is a "Get Well Soon" card for a lady named Ethyl who lives in Canada who I do not know, but who I heard about through my blog friend Brenda....
Brenda, in turn learned of Ethyls story through Sheree's blog;  In short Sheree was asking for Get Well cards for her friend Ethyl who had suffered a terrible accident and was dealing with the aftermath with fortitude and grace. 

I used an image from The Paper Shelter, I saw it on Lisas blog and thought it was soooo cute - and very versatile.  I've coloured with Copics, adding some Stickles to the centre of the flower and gloss to the little fellows nose.
The papers are from Kaisercraft's Hippy Girl collection, while in this photo you can see the glitter on the stripy paper you can't see the more subtle glitter on the background paper.  I stamped the sentiment with Brown ink and embossed that with more glitter....even the ribbon is glittery, but I don't think it's too much - just cheery!
 Do It With Digis has Spots &/or Stripes as it's challenge; I've gone with stripes - my paper.  I've mounted the panels at different levels with foam dots, my fave!
Cupcake Craft Challenges has "choose your favourite challenge" - from their first 150 that is! - as it's theme this time around, I've chosen #40 Green Pink Brown Animals and Flowers as my theme, though  #110 Pink and Brown would have done just as well!  A Spoon Full Of Sugar has exactly that: Pink and Brown, so guess what? I'm in!!
I've used this sketch from Sweet Sketch Wednesday, the embellishment at the top right seemed superfluous with the big flower on the image, so I added a little (glittery, of course!) butterfly.  
The image panel is cut using Nestabilities Standard Circles and the brown mat from Nesties Lacey Circles....Cute Card Thursday has Going Round in Circles and Digital Tuesday has Spellbound (use Spellbinders or similar) as its challenge, so I'm entering there.  
Fuzzy Wuzzy Challenges  has Get Punchy as its theme,  as well as my Nesties I've used Martha Stewarts Doily Lace border punch to cut the pink and brown strips across the card, and my MS butterfly, so I'm in!!
Simon Says Challenge has Anything Goes as its theme, easy peasy, lol.  Craft Your Passion has Just For You and while this is Just for Ethyl, I'm sure they'll let me enter!!

 The inside of the card looks very simple, there is nothing particularly technical about it but it took a lot of cutting...I cut the mats, die cut openings in them, then die cut the lacey circle frame with a die cut circle to fit inside...if I'd thought it through I would have stuck the mats together first and then cut them out as one, duh!
Well that's all the details on my card for Ethyl, while her story is hers it resonates with me on a personal level:
Some four years ago, my nephew was in a horrific industrial accident; his arm was crushed in machinery while he was working on a very remote drill site in the Outback of Western Australia, it took several hours for the Royal Flying Doctor to get to him, then several more hours for them to evacuate him to Darwin....this delay led to severe complications and a fight to keep initially his life, then his arm.  Still, without the RFDS he would certainly have died so we are eternally grateful to them. 
While he has kept his arm, it is no longer functional and is severely disfigured.  He was in hospital for sixteen weeks, he underwent more than twenty surgeries;  he had, among other things, muscle tissue taken from his back, veins taken from his leg (to try and make an artery for his arm) and skin taken from everywhere!!
The vast majority of his time in Hospital after he'd been flown back to Perth were spent in isolation because of a MRSA he picked up in Darwin Hospital (actually a tropical disease of "unknown" origin then a MRSA),  
Of all the procedures he went through, the debriding of necrotic tissue and skin grafts - going through the cycle of graft and rejection that is common to these sorts of injuries - were the toughest to endure physically and mentally. Many steps of this process seem to have been replicated in Ethyls story, and so I hope that getting cards from people she doesn't know will help her feel she is in the thoughts of others...that sort of RAOK certainly helped my nephew, and his mother - my sister - to cope at a difficult time.  For this reason I applaud Sheree for taking the time to organise it all.  
I'll be back tomorrow with a little project I've made....and it will be a very short post PROMISE!!
Until then, Happy Crafting, Dee