Caring for Crystal

A local scrapbook store here in Southern California, Scrappin' Good Times, is asking for help from scrapbookers everywhere. The owner Trish's cousin was diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer. Trish is looking to assemble scrapbooks for her niece and 2 nephews to remember their mother. She explained the situation and her efforts in an email, an excerpt from which we've posted below:

"Crystal is more than my cousin. She is more like a sister and a best friend. She is 33 years old and she has a 2½ year old son named Aiden and a 8 month old daughter named Rylee. She is married to Jason who has a 14 year old son named Gaven who Crystal treats as her own.

...things have actually gotten worse. After many tests, it has been found that Crystal has an EXTREMELY RARE and EXTREMELY AGGRESSIVE form of Cancer... If things go well and Crystal responds well to ongoing Chemotherapy and Radiation, she could live another 2 years. Unfortunately, it could be less.

Her biggest fear is that her children are so young that they will never know or remember her. How could this happen to my young cousin that has two babies depending on her? She asked me to create the Scrapbooks for her children so they would know who their mother was. She wants them to know what a great life she has, how much fun she is and of course how much she loves them. How do you let these children know what a wonderful person their mother was? .... I don’t think there is a better way to accomplish this task than through our passion, our hobby...scrapbooking....

If you would like to know more about Crystal , see pictures and keep updated on her treatment program and her fight against cancer, her friends have started a blog for her. It is http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=1028105889&msgid=4102280&act=3VXF&c=7082&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.caringforcrystal.blogspot.com%2F.

Layouts can be dropped off or sent to:

Scrappin' Good Times

564 W. Arrow Hwy

San Dimas , CA 91773

-- Trish Figueroa from the Scrappin' Good Times email newsletter, 12-10-08

So here is how you can help:

• Pass this information along to your friends and family to see if they can help.
• Create pages for Crystal
• Go through your stash and find past class kits or assembled pages that need pictures and get them ready to send.
• Gather your friends to have a layout making party.
• Send your layouts to Scrappin' Good Times at the address above or drop them off at the store.

Guidelines for the layouts:

Layouts in these topics, in order of importance:

1. Birth to Current Age for Kids
2. How Crystal Met, Dated, Engaged and Married her Husband
3. Crystals' Childhood
4. Current Familyt Events
5. Greeting Cards She Received Along Her Journey

SIZE: True 12x12 Layouts. Crystal has a lot of pictures from the same events so two page layouts are preferable.

THEMES:

• Thanksgiving
• Halloween
• Christmas
• Easter
• Birthdays
• Snow Days
• Seasons (she has lots of winter and some cute fall pics)
• Also any generic like family, love, brothers and sisters, mom and me, dad and me.
• Anything baby...any cutesie baby sayings like cute as a button, baby love, bath time, time to eat, playtime etc.
• Crystal ’s daughter Rylee is 8 months old.
• Her son Aiden is 2 ½.
• There are tons and tons of baby pictures.
• There is also a 14 year old step son named Gaven and there a lots of pictures with big brother.

Please make sure to leave one journal box for each two page layout. Crystal wants to journal on every layout.

Please sign the back of each page so we know who did the pages and I can tell the children about this later on.

'Tis the season of giving. Please open your hearts to help this family in need. Thank you in advance.