PROJECT: Operation Write Home

Yesterday, I was involved in a service project that the ladies group at my church (West County Christian Church) sponsored. It all started when Ted posted on his board, fromCtoshiningC, about Operation Write Home (If you click on the title it will take you to their website)  This nonprofit organization provides handmade cards for our deployed service men and women, to write home on. If you think about there are no Hallmark stores in Kabul for them to run to when they want to send a card home.

There were a total of 13 ladies and we made 124 cards in about 3 hours! There was alot of prep ahead of time by the coordinator of this project Bo-Diva (as we call her) She is in charge of our card ministry as church. She had everything ready to go as the ladies arrived.

This is photo of a mother/daughter team, Jill and Kaye, I was trying to get Kaye attention but she was concentrating too hard on what she was doing. Kaye is a woderful friend who is battling cancer and for whom I made the composition book for.

This photo reminds me of the saying Hands to Work Hearts to God.

Some of cards that were made yesterday

This Superman paper I had in my stack for years and didn't know what to do with it, I thought maybe some of the servicemen might like a card made of this paper.

I am sure alot of the servicemen and women would love to send as many hugs home as possible.

We have a very talented artist in our congregation and he had some of his paintings printed off so they could be made into cards this is just one of his beautiful watercolors.

Operation Write Home request that you put this stamp on the back of the card. You can purchase the stamp from their web site.

Carla and Carol are counting up all of our efforts. Since this was our first time with this project we felt that a goal of 50 cards would be resonable but we were surprised and thrilled that we ended up with 124 cards. We hope to do this again real soon, we had alot of fun creating and fellowshipping with one another.

My Favorite

This is a picture of my youngest son. We have a family joke between my oldest son and myself. He always accuses me of picking our younger son as my favorite and I always agree with him. I tell him why not he is sweet, he gives me lots of hugs and he tells me I am the best mom is the whole world. Why wouldn't he be my favorite. When I saw this picture that I took of him in the car on the way to central IL, we were sitting in the back seat together and he had just woke up. I think that some picture are just better in black and white. You don't get caught up in all the colors and the essence of the picture comes out.

The frame I created in Design Studio. Sometimes when you design thing the cut comes out way different than what you think. I didn't realize when I designed this that it would come out in two pieces (the inside frame is  seperate from the outside frame) I probably need to rework it but at the time I was in a the scrapping mode. I used the Opposite Attracts cartridge for the letters and just used a black pen to out line the letters. I used rub ons for his name on the picture itself. The paper is from Basic Grey's Urban Prairie collection. Look at the cute little bee in the corner :)

Bubble Mesh Layout

I had a very productive croppping weekend and so I am going to show you some of the fruit of my labor in my next few posts. In this layout I used the Bubble Mesh I created a few months ago. I hope this inspires you to use this mesh if you do send it to me and I will post it here.

Here is the close up of the details

Are you wondering what Dogtown is? St. Louis has alot of ethic neighborhood, the Italian section is called The Hill and the Irish section is called Dogtown (I can't remember why) they have a big parade for St.Patrick's day. It is more of a neighborhood parade but it is huge and goes on forever. Thousands of people show up for the parade and big parties. Alot of beer and bagpipes!

PS ......if you would like the mesh just leave your email in the

comments and would be happy to send it to you.

Monocromatic Thank You Card

I wanted to make monocromatic card. I love the monocromatic look and the key to pulling it off is using texture. I used the Cuttlebug embossing folders the Swiss Dot and Swirls. This was my first attempt at using embossing powder (I got some for Christmas) The glitter embossing powder was a little harder to see if it was melting and of course I tried to contain the glitter as much as possible but it was all over my kitchen table. I used my Cricut to cut the scalloped circle. The only thing I don't like is the "Thanks" I feel it was a little too informal for the card, but it was the only stamp I had that would fit in the circle. Lastly, I used the wonderful Martha Stewart branch punch.I love that punch and try to use it when ever I can. I hope this card will inspire you to try a monocromatic card. I am going to try to make some other cards with some other colors.

Close up of the branch punch on the top of the card

I used a swirly stamp and randomly stamped around the scalloped circle and embossed it.

Retro Bubble Mesh

This is a mesh I created when I saw some doodling templets from Crafter's Workshop. The templets are made from the plastic that you make stencils out of. They are very cool and you can use them with the inks that you put in a spray bottle. (Something else to buy!) I loved the circle inside the circle and knew I could recreate it on my Design Studio and my Cricut. The Cartidge I used is George and is to be cut out on an 12x12 mat.

Here is the screen shot

and then the final result.

 Just click on the Title and you can download the file.

Enjoy!