In honor of all the teachers and kids going back to school—good luck!
Image by HouseMouse, colored with Copics; sentiment by Studio G. I think I might have to buy this HM stamp. It is so cute and so fun to color!
I've been busy—as many of the Cards for Heroes cardmakers—using donated supplies from Fiskars (awesome Heidi Grace papers and stickers), cardstock donated by Mohawk, and stamped images given to me by cardmaker Deloris! I keep receiving so many wonderful gifts of supplies for all these cards; I think the only thing I buy now is adhesive (ATG tape), Copics and refills, and, uhm....I think that's it? LOL! Soon I need to start using a ribbon stash that a friend from church gave me....and then there's all the drawers-full of goodies that I've been hoarding already. Does this happen to anyone else—your stash just grows no matter how many cards you try to make?? Well here are a couple of the cards I made today. I think I'm toast on Halloween cards for this weekend, so tomorrow should bring some other-themed cards!
And here's a photo of a LOT of the cards using the donated patterned paper and stickers - some made by me, some by other cardmakers who I shared the goods with:
Thanks again to everyone who helps with so many of the supplies we need for the cards—the companies, the cardmakers, friends from near and far! Our nation's heroes appreciate your generosity...and so do I!
Don't forget my blog candy challenge (see the sidebar at right for the TANKS challenge)—halloween, thanksgiving, and fall cards, sent to any shipper by Sept 15th! The prize will be a set of stamps plus some other goodies; I can never seem to send out a prize all by itself! :)
Some of the other Halloween card closeups are here.
I think this weekend I am truly thankful to be able to rest from my labors! I clocked in 60.5 hours in the office this week—ugh! But it's over now. And I got to leave a little early today, and took a niiiiice long nap when I got home. Not much I love more than a nap while I would normally be at work!!!
This evening has been spent on a bunch of exciting preparations....one of which is a blog post for the Homefront Blog.... go check it out! It is VERY exciting news about a challenge—but more than the challenge, it contains a Christmas bonus for YOU, the cardmakers!!!!!
In the coming days I'll have more big exciting things to share with you, but I'm sworn to secrecy for the moment. So mum's the word....but stay tuned!!
I'll be a mad stamper (mad as in wild, not as in angry!) all weekend, so I hope to have lots of cards to show you. What's on tap? Glad you asked!
I had such FUN this evening! My church had a packing day, and we put together 35 boxes for deployed heroes! Most are friends/relatives of our congregation, though one person had asked our church to support several of the nurses at her CASH (combat support hospital) because they were having a rough time.
We had about 15 people, maybe? Some little kids helped, adults, old and young, big and small—there were long tables filled with items to pack up into each box. We were done and cleaned up in an hour and a half, I couldn't believe it! I'm gonna have to hire these people for my packing days. :)
There will be a Christmastime packing day too, and our church is likely to do a cardsigning before then. So here's a question:
Does anyone know a stamp company that makes a patriotic Christmas stamp? Trees with stars and stripes, that sort of thing? I don't "need" something like that, any kind of Christmas cards will work, but I thought it could be fun to try to find some stamps to inspire me.
And now I'm pooped...I think I picked up too heavy a box when we were hauling everything out, and now my back hurts. I am not as young as I once was, lol! Maybe that's a sign it's time to sit and color . . .
(Do I ever need an excuse to get out the Copics??)
I've been so bad about both posting to my blog and surfing other people's blogs that I missed a tag and an award!!! Zoinks! :) Maybe now that the Olympics are done and summer's wrapping up I'll be back to whatever normal once was...
The award:
The rules for the award are -
I spent most of the Olympic weeks working on a project for my church and the troops...we're having a care package packing day on Tuesday, and I had committed to making packets for each box and writing a letter to each hero.
How many could that possibly be, right? (I was picturing maybe a dozen.)
Uhm. I found out it was 36. EEEP!
So that's 36 AnyHero letters. And 36 packets of cards; initially I had hoped for 10 cards each, but since I wanted to make them myself instead of pulling from the CFH stash, I reduced my goal to 5 cards in each pack. That was still a total of 216 cards, eeep! So I went production-happy, and tonight I got to do the TA DA pose since I finished! Here's my handiwork:
36 baggies, with 5 cards in each, tied up in a ribbon, a CFH brochure folded inside, and a pen:
The assortment of cards inside: birthday, miss you, thank you, love you, thinking of you.
All packed up and ready to go, Sharon! (I think she was worried when I showed up at church without the cards ready to hand over. I'll take them with me Tues night, Sharon, no worries!)
And my 36 AnyHero letters, written out and ready to roll. (Inside envelopes after this photo.)
So I think I'm all ready for the packing party on Tuesday. Woohoooooooo!!!! TA DA!!!!
These are made from sketches by Sue and Kim on the TwoPeas stamping board...the gallery has gotten wonky lately, so I can't post them there, phooey!
I'm all wonky. Not in my normal way! But my schedule's all off. Right now it's 5:56 am and I have been up for hours. I'm going to be a mess for days at this rate!
Yesterday I woke up with a case of vertigo. Not just the kind you get when you stand up too fast. It stuck with me. Fortunately it didn't make me nauseous, but I just stayed in bed; so I slept. And slept. And then slept a little more. Called the doctor, and they didn't have any openings to see me, and recommended the ER if I was worried. (Uhm, NO.) A couple friends recommended Benadryl, so I tried that, and it helped a lot (and since it worked, I'm pretty sure I don't have the brain tumor my imagination conjured up!!). Colored a while and then slept again. I made myself get up for a few hours and tried making some cards---the dizziness didn't bother me while sitting, so that was good, but I just got tired. So I napped again. And now I've been up for hours, coloring and watching the all-night Olympics repeats (lol). Now that the sun will be up shortly, I'm getting sleepy again. Geez! Like I said, I'm gonna be a mess.
I did find some pics to share that I hadn't gotten to posting earlier this week...!
And these are some cards that came in this week plus a bunch I've made over the last few weeks. Most are on the way to Afghanistan tomorrow (oh wait, I mean today. In a few hours?)
Oh my this is both funny and frightening!! Click here for the video!
**ETA Sorry, it's a hoax. A funny hoax, but a hoax! Enjoy!
I'm working my way through a few of the Fiskars' Heidi Grace goodies from their donation...and stamped images RAKd to me...man, I tell ya, all I need to buy nowadays is adhesive. Wahoo! :)
Tag, heart, background paper - all Heidi Grace, image by SU:
This is all Fiskars/Heidi Grace:
I love these little bulldozers and construction workers! I added the F/HG tabs and a sentiment by Wordsworth:
Papers and tag by F/HG, RAKd flower image, plus a couple primas:
Oooh this has no F/HG on it, how'd that sneak in? lol. Image is a Housemouse, and I put a little Glossy Accents on the bubble gum.
Cool flocked background paper and tag by F/HG. I think the image is likely Penny Black? Maybe?
Papers by F/HG:
Tomorrow is the radio interview on AFBRadio, tune in if you can!
And don't forget to get your fall, thanksgiving, and halloween cards mailed to any shipper for my TANKS blog candy challenge! :) You've got til Sept 15th, but you can still send cards in longer than that for holidays:
Halloween cards will ship by Sept. 20th
Thanksgiving cards will ship by Oct 20th
Christmas cards will ship by Nov. 14th
Valentines cards will ship by Jan. 9th
Have a super day, everyone!!!! I'm excited, it's cool and rainy here. I love a good rainy day!
These fish images and background papers were sent to me by my friend Deloris....there are actually another 4 of each color made. I love quick-assemble cards! :)
And here's one of the cards made with some Heidi Grace papers I received as a donation—I did a bunch of others but my camera made them all sorts of fuzzy, harrumph! (Yes, I'm blaming my camera—of course it's not me being shaky, right? lol)
A little heads up, there's going to be another online stamping event at Two Peas! It'll start Friday Oct 3rd, the day before World Cardmaking Day, and continue for the following week. So set that time aside so you can come play with us!
Ciara and I had a very different day today . . . she tried to stay cool in our 90-degree heat by hogging the fan:
I, on the other hand, was quite productive! I had sooooo many images already colored—it's been the way I spent my hours watching the Olympics over the last number of days—so it was a breeze to assemble them. But man, just putting them all out on the table made me feel pretty good about getting so many done!
I did a lot of these production-line style, which I don't do often, since I love to make every card different. But I was sooooo determined to get these images used up . . . once they're colored, I want to move on, know what I mean? I have a huge pile of halloween, fall, and thanksgiving images I want to get to, but wanted to get this pile of stash used up. So I did! :-)
I also have a special project to get busy on in the coming week. I don't know if I can do it but I'm going to give it the old college try: my church is packing up care boxes for our members' deployed relatives and friends, and I was asked to put a packet of cards into each box...35 boxes! Yikes! I would love to put 10 in each but that's just not going to be reasonable, I don't think. Eeep. We'll see what I get done by the 26th, they may only get a few cards each!
Have a super week, everyone!
I got a call from Paypal the other day asking about a large funds transfer—praise GOD they called! Someone tried sending $850 to Lithuania! I am DELIGHTED that Paypal's system kicked it out and they called. The transfer was made from my bank to Paypal, but will be able to be diverted back to my own account once it clears, so I haven't lost anything yet. At least financially.
I did lose about 36 hours (or more?) worth of email. Because this jerk got into my email too! Ugh!!! I spent the longest time on Comcast's chatline to figure out why my email wasn't coming through, and even AFTER telling them about the Paypal identity compromise, that didn't "click" for them that they should have directed me to look at my email forwarding preference. The hacker had changed that to forward all my email to them, leaving no copies on the server and cleaning up their bread crumb trail. It wasn't until getting another rep today that they immediately directed me to look at that preference, and my email is now restored to come to ME. I am so mad that the service rep last night let this nightmare drag on an extra 12 hours because they did not tell me about email forwarding! :(
But hey YOU---notimportant57@yahoo.com---you STINK!! If I ever find who you are, you are in more trouble than you bargained for. You've been reported to every one of the authorities I could find, and we are ON YOUR CASE!
So if any of you dear friends emailed me during that timeframe, I didn't get it, so try again. I wasn't expecting anything major so I hope nothing got lost. And I hope this jerk---notimportant57@yahoo.com---didn't sign me up for anything stupid, because I am going to go AFTER your sorry butt for every bit of what you have done!!
Please, everyone, go change all your passwords. This weekend. DO it. I have not been as good about security as I ever should have, and am finding out just how horrible people can be and how careful we all need to be. I'm making a regular schedule for myself now to change passwords and keep up better on this stuff. And I recommend you all do the same.
In the meantime—YAY for Paypal!
And BOO for Comcast!
And DOUBLE BOO for notimportant57@yahoo.com!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Crazy crazy couple of weeks! Work's nuts. My team is going to a 'ropes course' tomorrow—and I have so much work to do I'm staying in the office to get stuff done. (Waaah!)
In the evenings, the Olympics have become an obsession. I'm making as many cards as I can squeeze in while I watch—because CFH has gotten a slew of requests from soldiers lately, and one from a 500-man battalion! Gotta get cranking! :) But it's so hard to stamp while watching the exciting swim races and great gymnastics (am I the only one waiting for them to fall off the aparatus?) I've been crafting on the dining room table so I can watch tv, so I don't have my 'stuff' at my fingertips...though I'm getting exercise running back and forth to the craft room! I can't wait til they get busy televising weight lifting or something so I can go back in there to work for a while, lol.
Here are the recent bunch of cards that have come in:
And two of my reasonable-looking cards. I've been making a lot of SIMPLE ones lately so I can get a lot done. Both of these are RAKd images from Deloris, who sent me a flat rate box FULLLLL of images! Woohooo, my Copics are so happy they're drooling! I've been sorting through lots of them, trimming them down, and will be RAking some out to folks in coming weeks/months as I have time and money. THANK YOU Deloris!
Say a little prayer that I can get all that work done fast tomorrow with nobody in the office to bug me. I would love to leave early to make up for missing out on the zip line with my team! :( If I got back home early it would take at least a little of the sting out of getting left behind!
My friend Nancy did a sketch for the stamping board, and this was my interpretation of it:
Image by Penny Black, colored with Copics; sentiment by Studio G.
It feels so much better to be back to stamping!
It's been quite a week. Work got a tidge out of hand; we're getting into the last phase of a series of projects and the work is sandwiching down here in the last month. Then I had all the supplies that arrived (a GOOD problem!) and I spent a night cutting down paper. I still have a lot to sort and then RAK out, but — if you want some of the cardstock donated by Mohawk, check out this post!
I also got caught up on *most* of my CFH scrapbook—I scrap all the letters, and printouts of the emails, and photos....whew! Only a couple more, and I'm waiting for that contact to send me some pics of the guys with the cards that he promised to send. :-) Then the scrapping is at least caught up. (On THAT book only—I still haven't finished the Israel book or the all-about-me one! Ack!)
So...these are the first cards I've made since the weekend and it feels so good to get some creating going! I have two contacts who actually emailed me now to ask when they are getting more cards, so I need to get cranking; it's been a somewhat slow summer on donations of both cards and monies..... Hopefully everyone will be back from vacations soon! :)
Have a GREAT Friday tomorrow....I hope to be back with more cards! And DO NOT FORGET the blog challenge above for the TANKS cards! Our guys and gals need to know we're grateful for all they do....so let's get lots of cards in!
**This post will remain at the top for the duration of the challenge; scroll down to see new posts.**
I'm feeling so TANKful to all of my blog visitors & faithful CFH donors, I'm offering up a little blog candy challenge from now to Sept. 15th!
I can't get blogger to post the photos — but I am SO excited! I had FOUR huge boxes on my porch tonight...each one required two hands, I had to carry each one inside separately they were so heavy!!
First, from Paula, a part of a donation from Mohawk Papers—they gave her the equivalent of 9,000 sheets of cardstock!!! Yes, 9,000 sheets, that's 18,000 cards!!! She sent me a box as a test to see how many fit in a flat rate box....stay tuned to the Homefront Blog for an announcement about how you can get in on the goodies! (She'll pack it up if you pay shipping; she's working out details about what fits in a box, etc). So one of the boxes had 450 sheets of paper in it—half red, half that can best be described as a Kraft type? I'll post pics when blogger stops hiccupping!
The other three boxes are a donation from FISKARS! Holymoley, they sent SO much stuff, it's just amazing. And it's PERFECTLY suited to the TANKS challenge above—there is a lot of Halloween paper in there! I'm going to sort through it and see what is there and count it, cut the pp and divvy....if you'd like a pack of goodies to make cards for this challenge, let me know, and if you pay shipping, I'll send you a package! :) Wowsers, this is amazing. Lots of paper, rubons, punchouts, oh my. And flowers, lots of Heidi Grace bits and pieces. I'll be back soon to report exactly what I've got, I just had to tell someone quickly!! (The dog was just not nearly as excited as me. "Paper? Nothing to eat?")
ETA: The list of what was in the Fiskars boxes:
...of a white Christmas? In August? Well, I spent the weekend turning cardfronts into 92 cards for our heroes to use this Christmas—these were the last of the large stash that was brought to the U.S. all the way from Hong Kong! Thanks again, Sita, these will be well loved!
I was packing up a box for a Chaplain in Afghanistan and had some space left...so I filled it up with a bunch of quick Christian cards. (They were quick because the images were already colored and trimmed!) Chaplain, keep your eyes open for a big box of cards coming your way!
Who'd a thunk I'd have my own shipping center? I had to do something, this stuff was in so many places all over my house!
Here's what's pictured:
Top shelf:
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