May 3, 2022
Welcome on this blog hop and thanks for stopping by! This blog is about creating awareness for asthma, which comes in many forms from very mild to severe asthma. On this hop I want to share some information about what asthma is, what you can do to help, what my personal story is and where you can find more info and what charities are there worldwide. Of course, I will show you my card project for this hop and describe how you can reproduce it and there is a giveaway explained at the end which is sponsored by amazing stores and brands!
What is asthma?
Asthma is a chronic lung disease which occur in children and adults, the airways are sensitive, and it depends on the kind of asthma what triggers the asthma. Asthma narrows the airway and cause swelling, it can also cause extra mucus due to inflammation. Symptoms of asthma can be shortness of breath, a wheezing sound when someone breathes but isn't necessary, coughing, chest pain and feeling like all the energy just disappeared. There are different triggers, like exercise, allergic triggers such as pollen, dust, food and others and also non-allergic triggers like perfume, smoke, air pollution and viruses.
Approximately over 300 million people have asthma worldwide and unfortunately people can die from it too. Luckily with more information, research and new medication it can be controlled, but there is no cure yet. Most people know the inhalers, but there are also pills, injections called biologicals and prednison to reduce the symptoms. Some people with asthma have minor problems, while others can't work, and asthma has a high effect on their quality of life. The last one is called severe asthma, only 2-5% from all people with asthma has severe asthma so luckily it is rare.
(Source: https://www.asthmafoundation.org.nz/your-health/living-with-asthma)
How can you help someone with asthma?
Everyone reacts different and on different triggers, so ask them what their triggers are. For example, some people (like me) get an asthma attack from smoke (cigarette, BBQ, campfire, cooking dinner), perfume, humidity, some people can predict when snow is coming and many other triggers. Luckily everyone reacts differently so friends of my can BBQ without problems and can use perfume. If you know the triggers of the person you can help them prevent to get in contact (and if you can control the weather you are the greatest hero on the world haha), this is really helpful for someone with asthma. Asthma can cause problems on one day and the next day everything is fine, so if someone needs to cancel the appointment be flexible and try to come with a solution. Like instead of going out, watch a movie together and ask if they need some help with cooking dinner for example.
My story
So, my story started over four years ago when I got pneumonia which triggered my asthma. Apparently, I was born with asthma and had no idea until I was almost 25. Also I had bad luck and developed severe asthma, so a lot of medication, hospital visits, hospital admissions, ER visits and two rehabilitation processes for people with asthma. One of the rehabilitations was in the Netherlands and one was in Davos (Swiss). Davos is only for people with severe asthma. This year the Netherlands Asthmacentre Davos and the Dutch asthma association celebrate their 125 year anniversary and it was literally taking a breath being there. It was hard working, challenging but it was totally worth it!
When I got diagnosed, I was studying Animal Sciences and it was my third year, my internship was amazing, and everything went well! Until the pneumonia, that changed my life. It was hard to realize that I couldn't study fulltime anymore, I have tried it for over two years and then with some encouragement from my environment went to the government and the doctor said I wasn't able to work. A hard thing to hear when you are young and full of ambition. In those two years I started cardmaking and it is a therapy for me. I love to craft and want to do it every day, unfortunately that isn't possible, so with some help how to manage my time and energy I try to make as many cards as I can. Some weeks I can't do a thing and some very good weeks I can make three cards a week. These weeks are my very very happy weeks.
(Photo: a compilation of tools and medication used for asthma-control)
So, with this hop I hope to give you more information about asthma, what effect it can have on people, how you can help and beneath I will share some links with information and some charities that raise money for good purposes to do research for example. Unfortunately, there is no global organization, but I will do my best to cover a lot of countries! At least for the information part I can cover a lot, because I only speak a few languages it is hard to add many charities for every country, so please take a look if you can help every Euro, Pound or Dollar will help, no big donations are needed but are also very appreciated.
Links of charities:
The links below are from charities that raise money for all purposes like awareness, information and research. You can check if one of the charities suits you.
Links with information for different countries:
The card
So after all this information it is time for the fun part! The card I have actually made for this hop and it was really fun to make. I had finally a good day for in a while, this card I already made in March so I really knew it was done in time. I tried to film the process, but unfortunately my phone was too full with photo's and videos of my cat Juno so it was a absolutely fail hahaha. So here my blogpost and I hope it is helpful enough! This card is inspired by a video from CaCaCraft by Erica.
I started with choosing a paneldie for my slimline card and I just received my new slimline set from Carlijn Design, a Dutch brand. I used the second biggest one with the nice scallops. I cut a piece of paper from crafter's companion white cardstock, which I use often and used my new Pinkfresh Studio slimline cloud stencil, because of the bigger clouds than my other stencil which I love also. I used my Distress oxides with my Taylored Expressions blending brushes. I started with squeezed lemonade, whiped my stencil clean between each colour with my stamp shammy from Lawn Fawn. After that I went to mustard seed, carved pumpkin, saltwater taffy, picked raspberry, kitsch flamingo, seedless preserves, prize ribbon, broken china, salvaged patina, cracked pistachio, shabby shutters and twisted citron. After blending I placed my die on the background and looked what was the nicest way to cut and include all the colours. I used my Sizzix Big shot plus for all diecutting.
After diecutting I was like, hmmm some glitter would be nice, how shall I add it. I looked through my stash and I have some wonderful powder from WOW embossing powder, the wanderlust. It has a kind of holographic glitter effect and I really liked it. I used a embossing pen to add embossing ink in detail, WOW has an embossing ink pen for this some details. You just colour the lines you want to embossed. Of course I used first a antistatic pouch all over the card and I followed the lines of the clouds by three colours and than added the powder, heat setted it with my WOW dual heat tool and went to this the whole card by three colours a time so I was sure the ink was still wet. I absolutely loved this glitter! The effect is so nice!
Now the sentiment, I wanted an encouragement sentiment, because this is an awereness hop. I just received my order with the Pinkfresh Studio chrysanthemum slimline stamp and die set and I love the sentiments in it. I cut the "never stop" and "you got this" first three times, put some low tack tape behind it and I placed the stamps in it to line them up nicely and it was really easy. After lining up I put the diecuts at there place and stamped it with embossing ink, forgot my antistatic pouch, luckily it didn't matter! I used the WOW gold rich pale super fine powder and heat setted it. After that I started stacking the dies with my Dutch Doobadoo glue in a precision bottle. After stacking them all three and place an acrylic block on them for a little pressure. I tried both sentiments, but the you got this seemed more appropriate for this card.
A slimline card is big, so just this beautiful sentiment felt a bit lost and I love a nice sentiment strip beneath it. So I picked out two sentiments and stamped them with Versafine Clair nocture, a nice waterproof pigment ink which stamps almost everytime very nicely the first time. The sentiments I choose where "Start the day with a smile" and "Never give up because good things take time", I choose the first one because I thought it looked the nicest on this card. I used a sentiment strip from Gina K Designs to cut the sentiment and used 2mm JeJe foamtape to give it some dimension.
To finish the card I looked through all the sequins and glitter and glamour I have in my stash and I decided to add five sequins, two bigger ones from my stash and three smaller from Nuvo. Those sequins are translucent with an iridescent shine and I thought it was the nice touch to this card. I glued them with a small drop of glue and placed them. When it was dry I added scotch 3M foamtape on the back and placed it on my cardbase. The cardbase is 8 1/2" by 8 1/8" and scored at 4 1/4" to create a nice small border around the card front. I hope you like this card, check out my instagram https://www.instagram.com/junos.creations/ for the rest of the hop, and read below how to join the hop and what you can win and what you have to do for it!
The hop
So, you are visiting this hop, it is an awareness hop, and we have some amazing giveaways, thanks to our amazing sponsors! I am so grateful that they want to help and sponsor these amazing prizes!
What you need to do is to follow, like and react on every post that is part of this hop. Only in the reactions beneath the Instagram post of Juno's Creations you have to say if you are from the EU (unfortunately the UK and Switzerland excluded), USA, if you live somewhere else that isn't a problem and you don’t have to mention it. Some sponsors are only available to sponsor gifts for people from the USA or Europe (unfortunately excluded the UK and Swiss from Europe), so that is why. Others have prizes for people from all over the world and offer worldwide shipping. Please hop on and look at all the amazing blogposts and cards and learn a lot!
This giveaway is only sponsored by the stores and brands beneath, so not affiliate with Instagram, Facebook or other social media. To join the giveaway, you must be 18 years or older to be eligible to enter or win and you're able to share the information we need so you can collect your prize if you are the winner.
The prizes you can win:
2x €25 store credit for cloud9crafts.nl only for people living in Europe (excluded UK and Switzerland)
1x €25 gift card for cardnouveau.be only for people living in Europe (excluded UK and Switzerland)
1x $20 or £20 gift card for https://www.wowembossingpowder.com/?aff=4
1x $50 gift card for ginakdesigns.com
1x $25 gift certificate for mftstamps.com
1x $25 gift card for lawnfawn.com
1x $25 store credit for tayloredexpressions.com
1x an amazing prize pack from Hero Arts only for people living in the USA
1x a Share Handmade Kindness goodie bag sponsored by Jennifer McGuire Ink
The amazing crafters on this hop:
The used products for the card:
CarlijnDesign Slimline kaart 6 Champagne
Pinkfresh Studio cloud builder stencil
Pinkfresh Studio chrysanthemum slimline stamp
WOW Wanderlust embossingpowder
WOW Gold rich pale super fine embossing powder
Distress oxides: squuezed lemonade, mustard seed, carved pumpkin, saltwater taffy, picked raspberry, kitsch flamingo, seedless preserves, prize ribbon, broken china, salvaged patina, cracked pistachio, shabby shutters and twisted citron
3M scotch foamtape
2mm JeJe foamtape strips
Crafters Companion white stamping card A4 300GSM
Creative Expressions woodware magic anti-static pouch
Nellie Snellen stamping buddy pro
Tim Holtz retractable craft pick by tonic studios
WOW dual speed heat tool
Sizzix big shot plus
Tim Holtz media glass mat
Taylored expressions blending brushes
Dutch Doobadoo glue
Vaessen precision glue bottle
Lawn Fawn stamp shammy
Versafine Clair Nocture
Gina K Designs die- sentiment strips
Vaessen creative papertrimmer and riller 12x6"
T-ruler
Heffy Doodle post-it tape