Thank you all so much for your encouragement and patience. I appreciate you! As you know, my own health issues are the inspiration for this project — so YAY for inspiration, but  BOO for my health issues slowing me down. 😉I apologize both for the lack of communication and for the delay in getting your rewards to you.

Happily, I am having a good weekend and making a lot of progress. I am hoping to get the cards into your hands during November. I will keep you posted!

While you’re waiting, here’s a little behind-the-scenes look at our process. (This is just what happens after we’ve decided how many types of sets, how many cards per set, how many iterations of each card, and what kind of binding and packaging to use…)

1. The Template! Sarah starts us off by designing a template for the cards that includes our logo, website, instructions, and layout for the squares. I am SO grateful to her for doing this. She is a fast, decisive, and brilliant designer. I am so lucky! We use her templates to complete everything we send off to the printers.

2. The Spreadsheet! Next I choose all the items I’ll use for the bingo squares (thank you to those of you who shared your ideas!). For the Chemo Care Bingo and Chemo Care Buddy Bingo sets, I have a total of 110 options.

Once I’ve entered those details into my spreadsheet, I label each option as an Action (such as Hold the door for someone), Observation (Spot someone wearing mismatched socks), or Experience (Score! Offered crackers.). There are a few goodies I include on multiple cards because they’re especially fun or effective (like Smile & make eye contact with 2 people), so I label those as well.

3. Divvy the Goodies! There are 24 squares to fill on each card. I print the spreadsheet and select 5-7 Actions, 8-11 Observations, and 8-11 Experiences for each card.

4. Populate the Template! Next, I write those options on blank paper templates. Once I have rough paper sketches for each card, I go back to the computer and copy and paste those goodies into Sarah’s InDesign template. During this process I tweak the choices more to give me a nice, even balance to all the cards.

5. Tweak the Cards! At this point I print the cards so I can see how each one will look. This stage has a lot of back and forth with pencil copies and printed versions. At this stage, I rearrange squares on the cards so that each up, down, or diagonal Bingo! will include a variety of options (action, observation, experience). Every card must include at least 2 smile or laugh-type options, and I like to vary the line length. Finally I double check to make sure I haven’t included things like 5 coffee-related items on one card!

6. Polish! At this point, I go back to Sarah’s template and enter the “final” goodies for each square. I print and double check for content, spelling, consistency of language, and placement on the card.

Then Sarah takes over. She does all the design work that makes the cards easy to read and use — and she proofreads again for any errors.

7. Proof! Proof! Proof! Once we get to this point, we are almost ready to send the cards off to the printer. I send pdfs to a lovely group of smart, trusted friends who proofread the cards one last time. And sometimes make an awesome suggestion for something we didn’t think of!

8. Send to the Printer! When we’re happy with our content, we send it off to our printer who does their magic stuff, returns another set of proofs for me to approve and then produces the cards.

Whew!

As of today, I am in the midst of step 5 for Chemo Care Bingo and Chemo Care Buddy Bingo cards and step 1 for the Happy Brain Bingo cards. As we get closer to your delivery date, I’ll keep you updated on the progress for each of the 3 new sets.

For those of you with people starting chemo soon, we made some sample copies so you could have cards right away. You can find those here: Chemo Care Bingo Samples 

Thank you, again for your patience and for making this project possible! You are amazing!