Memorial Day Blog-Hop Inspiration

Words cannot adequately express my appreciation, admiration, and gratitude for the men and women who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for my freedom. The only way I can think of to thank them is by offering cards I make that have been inspired by other cardmakers that have the same heart I have for our military servicemen and women.

Operation Write Home is having their annual Memorial Day Blog Hop today with 146 Bloggers offering their inspirations!!! Start HERE to join the fun and maybe make some cards of your own along the way!!

I'm only on the 5th Blog which belongs to Donna at Donna Inks and I couldn't keep going without trying her tutorial!!

Now I'm off to try some more cards!!

Missing My Blog!!!

I am SOOO sorry I have been neglecting my Blog! But a HUGE Thank You to those of you that are still hangin' around!!

I've been making cards here and there, but mostly sitting around playing with my new beautiful Granddaughter! Who'd-a-thot it would be so much fun!!

Anyway, back to crafts.... I found these really cool wooden boxes at Michael's in the $1 bin and couldn't resist buying a couple to decorate!

I used the CTMH Sophia paper and rub-ons, and found a couple other embellies to decorate it!

I am also STILL working on a box of cards to send to OWH and made some Thinking of You's to throw in the box!!

Unfortunately I have no idea where I got these beautiful DP's from... Sorry!!

Again, Thank You to those of you that are still visiting during your Blog hopping!!

OWH & ODBD Challenge

Operation Write Home and Our Daily Bread Designs has teamed up to make cards for our troops and get shipping costs covered. ODBD will pay for 1 box to be shipped for every 25 cards submitted to their monthly challenge, up to 2 boxes a month. The January Challenge is to make a card using 3 patterned papers. Here's my card...

I used SEI Dill Blossom papers and a Stampin' Up sentiment, as well as OWH Sketch #33.

Please take a moment to visit both blogs and maybe even try making your own card to submit!!

'Marci' digis

I recently purchased a couple 'Marci' digis from La-La Land and am now TOTALLY in love with her!!  I colored a bunch of them to make some 'no sentiment-girlie' cards for Operation Write Home...

... and this next one is my favorite!! My Bestest Friend asked me to make a red-head, and this is the closest I could get!

Isn't she adorable?!?!?

All of these cards were used with sei's Dill Blossom paper pack, SU markers, and of course, La-La Land's Marci digi.

If you are interested in joining me and hundreds of others in our efforts to help deployed servicemen and women send handmade cards home to their loved ones, click HERE to learn more about OWH, their guidelines, and which cards are needed at this time!

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!!!

OWH MWT Challenge

This week's Midweek Throwdown Challenge is to make birthday cards. Here's my card...

I still love the 'bursting window' technique, so I use it often! I used an SEI paperpack called Dill Blossom, an SU cupcake stamp, a Tim Holtz ticket, and some twine and a charm I found in my stash.

 Here's a closer view of the embellishments...

Enjoy!!

OWH Midweek Throwdown Challenge

The Midweek Throwdown Challenge for Operation Write Home is to make an Any Occasion No Sentiment card.  This actually worked out perfect for me because I was working on a card and couldn't figure out where I was going with it!

I went to the RubberStamp Convention at the Carson Community Center last week and bought my 1st La La Land Stamp so I used her... "Dress Up Marci"! I colored her with watercolor pencils and used scraps and embellishments I had scattered in my craft corner, and added some pearls with an Ice White Pearl Pen!

 Hope you are enjoying this week's challenge! 


    
                                            

OWH Fundraiser Featuring K'nK Designs

 Welcome to our Operation Write Home Fund Raiser Blog Hop!  If you’ve arrived at my Blog from Our Little Inspirations (Carol's Blog), you’re on the right track.  If not and you’d like to start at the beginning, you can start here (Jan's Blog).

K 'n K Designs has created some beautiful digital stamps to help raise funds to cover shipping costs for Operation Write Home during the upcoming holiday season. OWH is an organization that sends blank handmade cards to deployed servicemen and women so they can send cards home to their loved ones.

Here is the card I made using Kolar's Care Package, just one of the AMAZING stamps available for this fundraiser (I CASE'd this from Katlyn and Clearly iStamp)....

If you would like to join in our efforts to make sure as many military families receive cards from their Hero, you can purchase stamps to use on your own cards at K 'n K Designs. 

If you are interested in helping by just making a monetary donation, you can do so on the OWH donation page. 

The next stop on our Hop is Pam's Blog, Airborne Wife's Stamping Spot and you are going to LOVE her cards!!

BUT before you leave here, what's a Blog Hop without picking up some Candy along the way?!?!?  I have a variety pack of 6"x6" Christmas paper for one lucky winner! All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me which stamp set you like the best from K 'n K's Fundraiser Sets. You don't HAVE to become a follower, but if you do, you will get an extra entry for the paper pack! I will pick the winner using random.org on November 1st, the last day the digital stamps will be available....

AND... K 'n K Designs is also offering a prize for 2 lucky winners just for leaving a comment on each Blog in the Hop!!!

Happy Hopping and THANKS for supporting Operation Write Home and K 'n K Designs!!!

K n' K Fundraiser Blog Hop Info

This Saturday, October 22, I will be participating in a Blog Hop to promote digi stamp sets created by K 'n K Designs. The proceeds from the sales will help fund shipping costs for Operation Write Home during the upcoming holiday season. Who knows... maybe some Blog Candy will be involved?!?!?

K 'n K Fundraiser for OWH - Card #2

K 'n K Designs has come up with some beautiful digi stamps with all proceeds being donated to Operation Write Home to help cover shipping costs during the upcoming holiday season (which are estimated to be about $13,000!!).

These sets are only available until November 1st at noon, so DON'T WAIT!! Purchase yours today and help us help our deployed servicemen and women send cards home to their loved ones!

Here is a 2nd card I have made using the Eagle set...

Don't forget to come by this Saturday for our Blog Hop! There will be lots of talented ladies displaying the cards they have made with these stamp sets!!

K 'n K Fundraiser for OWH

Are you a card maker?  Are you a patriot?  Are you willing to do something to help our courageous, hard-working troops overseas keep in touch with home?  Well, Operation Write Home needs you!

Shipping costs for the next few months are estimated at $13,000!! 
 How can you help??

 Indulge your creative juices, and go buy some digital stamps!!
 K ‘n K Designs is having a fundraiser from October 17th (TODAY), to November 1st - and all proceeds to to Operation Write Home!
Combine your patriotism with your card making, and go buy some stamps to help our troops!

To help kick off the fundraiser, I made this card....

I used one of the new stamps and sentiments by K'nK Designs, Stampin' Up markers, cardstock and generic ribbon, and a Cuttlebug embossing folder.

now GO... BUY SOME STAMPS!!!

Clean & Simple (CAS)

Operation Write Home is having a Blog-Skip today with a Clean and Simple theme...

Here's the card I was inspired to make after seeing all the beautiful cards. I actually made a card similar to this last year for Valentine's Day and was told it was a little too simple, so I added to that one.... but for the CAS theme, I think it's perfect!!

Hope you enjoyed the Skip!!!

Starburst!!

I LOVE the most recent tutorial on Stars & Stamps! Shannan at Pink Tulle With Feathers And Sequins offered this simple step-by-step technique... PLEASE visit her page and tell her how awesome she is!! (and tell her I said so, too!!)

I thought this card was too pretty to just look at and lay down on a counter or put in a drawer so I combined it with the Easel Card we learned back in June, 2010 (also from the S&S page... I just tweaked the dimensions a little so it would stand sideways instead of the long way!).  This way it can be displayed on a mantle or maybe a corner table!

Thank you so much for stopping by! Please leave me a comment so I know you were here!!

Father's Day, Pinwheels, & 1,000,000!!!

WHEW!!! Finished just in the nick of time! Father's Day cards for Operation Write Home need to be in the shipper's hands by the 21st of this month, and I JUST finished my little batch!

 This motorcycle is a digi I found online and, for the life of me, can't find the blog I found it on. If you know who it's from, PLEASE let me know so I can link back to them!
*sidenote: I found the motorcycle digi! Please visit Bird's Cards

 ... and this '56 Ford Fairlane digi is from Yolanda. She has a wonderful blog, so please visit her and tell her I sent you!

 These are just a couple of the 16 Dad's Day cards I made. I used SU paper, punches, and markers to decorate all of them, and embossed the kraft paper with my Cuttlebug.

In the box of about 50 that I'm sending in, I'm also sending some great pinwheel cards. You can find the tutorial on these at OWH Stars and Stamps, where there is also a link to the article about Denise, who originally made the pinwheel.

I made these without sentiments so they can be used for any occasion...

And in case you haven't heard, the AWESOME cardmakers for Operation Write Home have reached ONE MILLION cards!!! On May 12th, we all watched anxiously as Sandy counted cards until she reach 1,000,000! This means that 1,000,000 cards have been made available to our wonderful Heroes to send home to their loved ones! What an amazing group of cardmakers! Please watch the video via the link and make sure to leave a comment for either our cardmakers or our heroes! And here's a link to the 1,000,000th card sent in by Seongsook Duncan's Blog... stop in and leave her some love too!!

Thanks for stopping by!!

Melonheadz and Sliekje

Today's cards are from 2 very talented ladies that have greatly inspired my last few posts....

Nikki at Melonheadz is such a great artist and has quickly become a wonderful virtual friend of mine! I've posted on her before so you may recognize her name, but this time I asked her to draw a special pic for me. My oldest daughter enlisted in the Army Reserve so I asked Nikki to draw a soldier girl holding a flag. By the next morning, this adorable girl was in my IN Box!!

I used Stampin' Up markers to color my little soldier, and SU Blender Pens to create the camouflage. I don't have a distressing tool, but I've found that a sponge rubbed on an ink pad works just as well! The tag and sentiment are also from SU, and the patterned paper is from an old Paper Pizazz pack I had in my closet...

Unfortunately my daughter will be coming home early due to some minor medical issues, so I will be sending this card to another virtual friend's daughter instead!

My 2nd card is a Sliekje drawing. My 10 year old daughter wanted to help make cards and loves to draw, so I asked her to color some of my digi's....

Obviously purple is her favorite color, so I mounted her beautiful art onto different shades of purple cardstock and outlined it with ribbon. The tag was cut and written freehand...

I hope you enjoy your visit here! Please visit the blogs I listed and be sure to leave them comments! We all appreciate your feedback!!

OWH Sketch #60

Just a real quick post today... here's the sketch and my entry for OWH Sketch #60...

I got the brads from a Scrapbook Expo about 2 years ago and the patterned paper is from one of my old paper packs, added brown rafia and inked the edges... That's it!!

Thank you again for visiting! I know your time is valuable and I appreciate you using some of it on my page!!

OWH Sketch #59

I'm in the middle of getting a pack of cards ready to send to OWH and thought I'd take a minute to post my card for Sketch #59.  I made a few of these with some paper I got in one of my Cardmaker Kit of the Month sets.... not sure which one though because I took all the kits apart and tossed them in a big bin.

Anyway.... here's the sketch...

and here's my card....

I'm trying to get some Mom cards finished so I can send a decent sized box before the Mother's Day deadline of March 31st. I believe I read on one of Sandy's posts that they have lots of Mother's Day cards but could use some nonspecific Mom cards, so I chose this sentiment from Stampin' Up.

Better get back to work! Thanks for visiting!!

OWH Sketch#58-MidWeek-Throwdown-Easel Card

I don't know why, but for some reason I seem to do my best work in the middle of the night! I can sit at my table for literally HOURS during the day, but it's usually close to midnight when my projects finally come together and I have something worthy of posting!

This was certainly the case again today! I worked all day on getting a card together for the S&S Sketch #58 but I also wanted to make a Mother's Day card for the S&S MidWeek Throwdown BUT I also wanted to make an Easel Card!!!

So, here it is...12:05am and it's finally ready... My OWH Sketch#58-MidWeek-Throwdown-Easel Card!

The patterned papers are from my Exscrapaganza pack, the orange paper and stamped sentiment are from Stampin' Up, flowers were bought at a local scrapbooking store, and the chocolate pearls are from Queen & Co (bought them at the Scrapbook Expo!!).

And now... off to bed... I hope!!

Easel Card

I've been seeing easel cards a lot lately and thought I'd give it a shot! I got the tutorial from OWH Stars and Stamps and couldn't believe how easy it was!!

I used a Stampin' Up Curvy Verse for the sentiment, SU rub-ons and background paper, Exscrapaganza designer paper, and a Martha Stewart butterfly punch....

Give it a try... they're so much fun!!

OWH MWT Any Occasion Challenge

This week's challenge for the S&S MWT is to make an "any occasion card"... this one was easy for me!!

It also goes along with the masculine challenge for last week!

I used Sliekje Digi Stamps for the image, Cuttlebug for the embossing, SU markers to color the digi, SU ink and stamp for the sentiment, Celebrate It paper rafia, and Memories brown ink to distress the edges.

Enjoy!!

Embossed Butterfly Card

I liked the embossed flower card from Pam so much I thought I'd experiment with it... then when I went back and looked at the samples she made, I realized she had already made one with butterflies... so it wasn't my idea after all!! I was so focused on the beautiful flower card! Anyway, here's mine....

 I used all the same details as the embossed flower card in the previous post, with the exception of the butterfly punch.

AND of course... another digi!! This one is also from Sliekje's Digi Stamps

Now... off to bed!!