Megan Hayes

We Stamp for Lara

meganhayes4 — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 07:07:29 +0000

Just wanted to update everyone about the We stamp for Lara campaign.

This is from Madonna website and I think she explains things better so before donateing your $25, please check it out!

From Madonna Dunn (Lara’s Mummy)

Hi everyone,

I just want to update you with info on what’s been going on. PayPal have limited my account until I am able to provide them with information on the Sanction etc. Even though I crossed my t’s and dotted my i’s. I even contacted PayPal prior to putting up the buttons on our sites asking them if I needed to provide them with documentation.

I cannot even withdraw the nearly $8000 that you have all so generously donated at this time until the investigation is complete. This is exactly what happened to Tina and it’s why we made sure we had our paperwork in place. Apparently that doesn’t seem to matter.

I am so angry. I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry before. I told the fellow at PayPal that I will not let this rest until they have released my funds. I told him that I would take this to every single National TV station, newspaper and radio in Australia telling everyone what they have done. Who’s going to resist the story of a Mother trying to do the very best for her disabled child? And when I’ve exhausted all avenues in Australia, I will start on the US. I told him that if I do not get access to my funds until after my sanction is valid to (31 January) that they will be very sorry.

So if you have friends that you want to join up or know of anyone else who’s interested, please direct them to Lara’s trust account:

Heritage Building Society
Mrs M J Dunn T/F Lara May Dunn
BSB 638010
A/C #: 12189650

So pass along the message girls. We will make sure that PayPal release the funds quickly. Word of mouth is a powerful tool. An angry Mother is another one!

Love and Hugs,

Mad

Bad Blogger!

meganhayes4 — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 04:41:34 +0000

So sorry to be MIA!

I have been meaning to get to this but it’s always at the end of my list. I have worked out that “blogging” doesn’t happen if there are things to get to that revolve around family/house/school/ Stampin up and usually in that order. I do have photographic evidence though and that why I’m here to share it.

Whoops! Not that…..that is Richard the Lionheart- the focus of part of a history assignment that I have been helping Amos with. Ask us anything about him and Amos and I would probably know!!!

Okay! That’s better! I am running a class on Saturday using a “Jolly Holiday DSP Paper Share”. It’s a chance to get together and make some cards for Christmas which is once again so close. At Madonna’s place last week I had a play drawing ideas from lots of different sources. If you recognise anything that is familiar please let me know so I can acknowledge it. We were in a creating franzy!!! (Too many chocolate bullets!). I do know that the basic design idea for this one is CASED from a swap at Regional made from “Douglas”.

Speaking of Madonna here are a couple of photos I took on the day. She was just a little bit excited to unwrap a new set of extended cutting pads- look Meges she was saying- no cuts! Sooo pretty. (Darling Mads…you are sooo easily impressed)

This one is of Madonna and her very cute and very social little girl, Lexie. She was getting ready for a swim in the pool when she stuck her head around the door and asked “Mummy, am I just too cute?”

“OMG! Yes Lexie, you are”……… was the reply.

Enough said!

Birthday Bling

meganhayes4 — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 06:01:19 +0000

With the constant rain on the weekend I used some of the time to make cards for some special friends. Both are celebrating birthdays this week.

Little Malia from No. 2 Jarrah Place is celebrating her 4th birthday while my long time friend and workmate, Jenny is celebrating her big 50!

This is Malia’s card…..

I wanted something girly with BLING…what do you think…enough Dazzling Diamonds??? I love the Concord Crush with the Pear Pizzazz colours, in this. Yum! The final touch was the sentiment from Short & Sweet…”Wish Big”. So I hope Malia does and has a very special day. MWAH! to you Miss Malia.

I liked the card so much I thought that Jenny would too, so I changed it ever so slightly to produce this one….

The sentiment for Jenny’s card comes from the “Every Moment” stamp set we all received at the Brisbane Regional Training last month.

It says “When we see with our hearts, every moment is the most wonderful gift in the world.” Nice? Huh?

Off to help mother dear buy her new Apple laptop from the Apple Store at Robina! Wish me luck (and the shop assistant who serves her!!Only joking Mum!)

Catch you later

Mege

A Belated Birthday gift!

meganhayes4 — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 08:38:17 +0000

On Saturday night my husband and kids were all busy doing their own thing so I had an evening of stamping on my own. How nice was that!!!

My beautiful sister-in-law, Karen, celebrated her birthday on Wednesday and as usual we didn’t catch up until a few days after the fact. I had a play with a few new goodies to make her card and a little gift. As a rule we don’t give gifts as we have a big family so just spoil the kids (who are all now young men!)

This is the card I made for her along with a little “milk carton” filled to the top with “tic tacs”. She loved the cute box and matching card. She commented that she’d love to be able to make something like that!!! I told her that the last person that told me she couldn’t create is now in my downline blowing our minds with her beautiful (and creative) projects. HEY? Miss Michelle…I told Karen to be careful what she wished for and asked her when she will be booking a workshop. LOL!

We had a great night catching up. Drinks, nibblies, pizza and the Rugby League Grand Final. It was so much fun with a group of family and friends, not to mention Karen making all sorts of funny “football” comments! I forget that she spends every weekend in Winter “living football” with two of her boys.

Anyway, the little gifts were appreciated I think.

Have a great week

Meges

Caty Launch

meganhayes4 — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 01:10:04 +0000

It’s been so long that I have blogged that I have overlooked sharing photos from my Launch gathering. The ladies made two projects and had a few options in the process. We had lots of fun and shared ideas as the WISH LIST grew with the turning of each page.

Thanks must go to my SU buddy, Sarah Klass for the inspiration for one gift the girls received on arrival.

It was a New Catalogue Survival Kit which contained lots of little goodies such as homemade post it notes, tabs for their new caty, sheets to stamp for colour families, a pen, page flags etc.

I love the red strip that was added at the last minute! From Michelle O’Neill! She had gone through the new caty and added up how much it would cost to buy one of EVERYTHING in this catalogue. (…and people think I am anal. Hah!) It was a guessing competition that she used at her launch.

You wouldn’t belive that two of my ladies (who are great friends), guessed almost the same amount and were only $50 below the correct amount. You can send me a comment if you want to know the exact amount!!!!!! (or perhaps Michelle!)It’s between $19,000-$21,000! Yes, kinda makes you start looking at your own collection and thinking…how much is too much! (Sorry Kirsty! I wasn’t including you in this general statement.LOL!)

You’ll notice that one of the projects show the girls using the Cottage Garden paper with Rich Razzleberry Cardstock. Some of the ladies were catching up on a class that they’d missed a few weeks earlier as well as playing with the new goodies.

We made an easel card which was quick and fun. So sorry….we were so “into it“, I forgot about documenting the day with my camera! This project looked great with the Rich Razzleberry and Crumb cake colours. The background here is embossed with the Perfect Polka dots Embossing Folder and because everyone loves stamping so much, I demonstrated a few options using the “For You flower” as the focus. On this one, I embossed the flower then punch out the middle and added some colour using Tangerine Tango. Everyone loved their finished work!

Whew! So many post…think I need a little lie down!

Meges

Father’s Day Goodies from Year 1

meganhayes4 — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 00:13:43 +0000

My beautifil students in lGH had a ball making their Daddy’s these very cute cards last term. With a little help from my Big Shot Machine and SU’s Totally Tools stamp set they busied themselves for an afternoon of cardmaking. (Don’t panic…I had precut and stamped- I felt like I was getting ready for a demo!!)

Each child wrote a message to their Daddy’s on the inside then painted a tiny canvas by first drawing a picture of themselves and their Dad in black outline followed by a splash of paint. These were then wrapped in basic coloured paper and the children drew pictures or created patterns for the wrapping.

I hope their Dad’s got a buzz from their child’s efforts. I know I did!

Thanks Madonna!

meganhayes4 — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 00:02:01 +0000

Hi All!

How cool is my new page. With a little time to think things through and some editing magic with Madonna’s help, I was able to create a page that’s a little more interesting. We both learnt something new too!

Don’t you just love the new “Love Letter” DSP that we used to create the border?

On Wednesday I visited Madonna (Dunn) in Brisbane(my fab friend and upline). I was suppose to help her unpack more boxes and move towards getting all her stamping studio ready to run classess. In true Madonna style she begged (yes Gemma, she did) not to do anymorw unpacking and just “be”. So we had a nice time surfing the net, drinking coffee and talking stamping stuff. No interruptions either! She treated me to lunch – which was a good old burger with the works- and we chatted some more.

I have photos of the project we made and the tins we “prettied up” for the centre of the table but silly me didn’t have the card in my camera so I can’t transfer them as I can’t find the usb chord. DOH! (Mads- please send forth some photos).

I just wanted to THANK my beautiful friend for a lovely day. See…SU is so much more than ink and paper!

Don’t miss this!

meganhayes4 — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 11:18:39 +0000

I know Miss Kirsty won’t mind me showing you one of her beautiful Workshop WOW projects. The little roses were so cute and she made them look so easy to make. Head over to her blog for more!

Great job on stage by the way Kirsty…you were so funny!

Meges

Brisbane Regionals

meganhayes4 — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 11:10:45 +0000

Hi All,

Sorry about the long pause in blogging ! I had a brain freeze on the whole blogging thing when I decided to change the theme then it got put in the “not right now” basket. Besides I like to keep people guessing(not!)

Anyway, I am here to share some fun photos from a great day at the Regional Training sessions. Wow! Madonna’s team is certainly growing as is my team- The Stampdragons! It was so much more fun with even more friends to share the day. Kirsty Brown who has been kind of “adopted” by Mads was a Workshop WOW girl! Poor Kirsty nearly had a heart attack when another presenter shared something sooo very similar to her!!!!! Luckily, it was her amazing work that WOWed everyone. Here she is being helped by Madonna to “chill”.

Donna from the Utah Home Office shared lots of great stuff with us. She even found time to sit down with me and have a great chat during the morning. Sorry girls! Brisbane is her favourite destination…must be the peeps!

Top shot is the ever fabulous Madonna with me and at the bottom is the team who attended. Most of the girls say they are coming to Convention 2011. OMG! How cool if we all get there.

And here are the swaps I made.

I used the new “Cute by the Inch” Stamp set with Chocolate Chip, More Mustard, Riding Hood Red and Crumb Cake cardstock. Chocolate Chip ink and the “branch” from the bird punch to decorate the black ribbon. As usually these were left to the very last minute so I send huge apologies to anyone who got one that was a bit “off centre” (might we say!) Hey! The love was there!

Check back very soon as I have more to share. Told you when I’m on a roll…I just am!

Off to help Madonna set up her BRAND SPANKIN’ NEW STAMPING STUDIO in the morning. (I say studio as it sounds so much fancier than converted garage!LOL! Sorry Mads.)

Till then..Bye

Meges

Helping Miss Lara May Dunn

meganhayes4 — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 00:19:47 +0000

Many of you know my wonderful and amazing friend Madonna. Well, I’m sending out lots of positive energy to the universe in a bid to help her in a very special fund raising event-

I am part of a group of Australian demonstrators called Elite stampers and we are all trying to help the Dunn family with the purchase of a special chair for Lara. Here is Lara’s story as told by Madonna.

Lara’s Story

Lara May Dunn, my fourth child, was born on the 5^th of November 2008. The first sign that something was not right were Lara’s feet which were twisted and turned. At 6 weeks she was back in hospital for failing to thrive. A gamut of testing was started to try to find out what was going on…blood tests, x-rays and even an MRI. Her head hadn’t grown – Microcephaly was diagnosed. Nothing could be detected. There were no answers to be found in the genetic testing.

At 5 months Lara was back in hospital. This time the Royal Children’s Hospital in Brisbane for laser surgery on her floppy voice box. Another gamut of tests and a diagnosis of severe reflux and Cerebral Palsy. This time they put a nasal gastric tube in and all her feeds were directed through there. By October of 2009 the NG tube had been replaced with a “button”, which is a direct line into her tummy for feeds. She will never eat a meal with our family conventionally or “normally”.

Over the last {almost} two years, Lara has been in and out of hospital with many different complex medical issues. She is so fragile and yet has a core of steel and is such a fighter!! She has grown so much!

With her growth has come a need for more specialised equipment. One of which is a Leckey Hi Low chair. A specialised seating system that can be adjusted to fit Lara perfectly. It’s on a wheel base which means she can be more a part of our family. She is able to be moved to where we are. She is not limited to where we can take her in and around our house. She can be exactly where the action is at any given time!

We are trying to fundraise the money to purchase one of these wonderful chairs – how much money?? They are upwards of $6000. We are trying to get funding for some of it but I am working with other stampers and dear friends to find ways to get the rest.

I don’t want to limit where Lara is able to go in our house. She will never walk or run or play with her siblings in any conventional way and yet she can still be present as they do those things. Your help in our efforts is very much appreciated.

With my Gratitude,

Madonna

So if you would like to help head on over to Madonna site at http://www.madonnadunn.com

Megan