I have a friend who is currently recovering from a surgery, and she has to stay in the hospital all week. It's no fun at all, and it's definitely easy to feel lost as a patient. Because, let's face it, everyone there is just doing their job, until they can clock out and go home. Sometimes, we have to remind the rest of the world that we are indeed, here! Present! Needing care, love, attention, affection, and comfort. Especially when recovering in a hospital that is already overcrowded with many people who need these things.
To cheer her up, I tried to think of something to bring that she would actually be able to enjoy. Currently on an all clear-liquid, low-sugar diet, there's not much I could do in the way of food. Pain and all the medicines used to help manage it and the healing process, kind of take away most opportunities for leisure activities like reading, playing games, and watching a whole movie. Laughing is excruciating even, so how do you cheer someone up that really, really should just plain old NOT be cheered??
Restore their status as royalty, of course! Remind the people that are taking care of them, that this person is a REAL person, who deserves and needs extra attention, humor, company, and all the good things that we can offer to one another. Right??
So I saw this floating around on Pinterest a few months ago, and thought it was just the cutest thing, but hoped I'd never have the opportunity to make it. It's way more fun to drink wine and gab with my girlfriends than to know they're somewhere, maybe alone, healing from something that was totally painful and not fun at all. But I still kept it just in case... I just knew what I wanted to make and the idea came together very quickly! (Ya'll don't know this yet, but that's kind of a big deal for Finicky Me.)
I modified the poem a little bit, just to suit the wording more to my taste. (I have no idea who wrote the original poem, I'd give them credit if I knew who! But it wasn't my poem to begin with... just fyi. I'm not nearly that clever all on my own.) The font is one of my favorite go-to fonts for "fun" typography, Janda CurlyGirl by Kimberly Geswein Fonts. Her fonts are available on DaFont.com, free for personal use! Isn't that amazing?!? (I LOVE when designers offer something like that to us lowly, everyday craftaholics. It really makes my heart happy that they share their craft, after spending so much time creating something beautiful!)
Using my Silhouette Cameo, I cut the bandaid out of Recollections card stock, then shaded and decorated it with my very fancy brown Crayola crayon. I love using my marker holder on the Cameo to "write" things on the paper, before cutting. I'm brilliant, so I still haven't managed to figure out the Cameo's Print & Cut feature. Combine that with my addiction to pretty pens, and my loathing for my ink-sucking printer, and I use it whenever I get the chance! I assembled the whole shebang all together with some duct tape, dimension dots, and scotch tape because my mess of a craft room seems to have hidden anything that is actually meant for adhering paper crafts together. After layering the "NURSE BAIT" letters, I thought they needed something shiny, for which to attract these hard working nurses! Duct-taped it to two craft dowels, and put it into an Easter basket (disguised with red ribbon, the patient's favorite color!) Dumped a bunch of candy into it, along with some healthy snacks for the nurses that will walk in, say they're on a diet, see a granola bar, and grab a handful of chocolate.
They loved it- during the 45 minutes I was there, my friend was visited by no less than 3 nurses and 1 tech! I hope it works the magic it needs to soon, so she can come home to her family, furbabies, and friends who miss her snark and awesomeness very much!
