Courage in Orange & a Helping of Hope

Courage:   Even though it defines many, today I'm using it to define those who battle cancer.  This particular card has been created to send to my sister-in-law, who is recovering from surgery to remove a cancerous kidney.  

Thankfully, I spotted the Freshly Made Sketches Challenge this week, with the just-right sketch!

I'm almost sitting on my hands over such a vast amount of white space!  I adore it in a million ways on "other peoples' works" ... but a glance over my typical creations is all it takes to see that I must have been born as a 'winter' stamper, i.e. needing a lot of layers.  

  The fun part of this was making my own background papers with Distress Oxide ink for the cut circle, then again to emboss the detailed ribbon image. Although I'll hope to be able to color in the detail on this stamp in the coming months, it's impossible for me right now.   So, I was compelled to go for the shiny, fine-tuned texture of embossing.

Hope:  Now for that 'Helping of Hope' that I mentioned in the title. Over the past 2 years, my vision has declined steadily, to the point where I stopped driving 1 year ago.  While I still 'want' to stamp and to create, my efforts in 2017 have literally brought tears of frustration.  Studio classes became impossible, both in preparation and in design creations.  My sidekick is a huge magnifying glass on my stamping table, and another at my side all other times.  If only those trying tears could cure these eyes!     

Request for Tomorrow:  The sun will come out, tomorrow!  Yeah ... my current 'ear worm' ... you're welcome!      I would love your prayers for successful procedures tomorrow!  Two of my three vision issues will be treated in surgery tomorrow morning (Tues.) in one eye.  With good results, eye #2 will receive the same bypass shunt and cataract removal + lens replacement in the coming weeks.  The third issue, severe dry eye, will continue to be aggressively treated non-surgically.  Oh how I would love to discover being able to drive farther than a mile, to sweep the floor and actually SEE what is there, stamping, reading without holding a great big magnifying glass, creating, playing, seeing the TV again, and yada yada yada.    

...  Yes, please!    Thank you so for your prayers!

Inky (((hugs))),

~  Bev