OWH Thick & Thin Challenge

Finishing up the challenges at OWH's virtual cardmaking party. Yes, I think I did all 18 challenges over the past four days . . . whew! It's been a while since I did so much papercrafting.

For THIS challenge, we were to make two similar cards, but one was to be "thick" and a card sent TO a service member and another "thin" to be donated to OWH for a military man or woman to send home. 

I chose buttons as my thick and thin element. We aren't supposed to use thick embellishments on cards that the troops send home, because of the additional postage required. However, they also accept cards and letters TO service men and women. Everyone needs a word of encouragement, right? So, the first card has real buttons on it. I'll write a message inside and it will be given to someone at one of the units.

This card will go in a box for a someone to choose to write home on. (I love "missing you" sentiments on cards.) The buttons are die cuts, so they are paper thin--no extra bulk or unevenness that the post office frowns on.

Now my studio needs a good straightening up after making all those cards. It was fun, though, and I'm glad my mojo is back!

Until next time,

Lisa Kay

Stripes and Hearts

I haven't been participating in many challenges lately, but I recently acquired some new supplies and wanted to play with them. The January OWH* challenge hosted by Our Daily Bread Designs is to use stripes, so I pulled out my new 6x6 pattern papers from Gina K. Designs (newly acquired item #1) and cut 1" strips to create the striped backgrounds.(*Operation Write Home)

The other new item in my papercrafting studio is the Love & 5 Hearts die set from Hot off the Press. You can see the dies in their online store HERE. I thought it was a great purchase since we are nearing Valentine's Day. And they combine very well with my new Love Letters pattern papers. :-)

The cards are simple, yet intricate, with the layered die cuts. That's my favorite thing about cutting shapes with my die cutting machine--the intricacy. And the way these hearts fit on and in the other hearts really adds some interest and complexity to the designs. The die cuts were all cut from Club Scrap cardstock--my very favorite paper!







I'll be sending these cards in my February package to OWH. I've challenged myself to send 12 cards a month in 2014. While the Valentine card deadline has passed, since these don't say "Happy Valentine's Day," they are acceptable. After all, love is in style year-round!

Until next time, blog readers!  ~~Lisa Kay

OWH in the News

I love it when someone takes the time to compile a large amount of information into one easy-to-navigate format, and someone at OWH has done just that. If you ever wanted to know pretty much all the terminology related to cardmaking, you can find it HERE!

Operation Write Home (OWH) serves American servicemen and women around the globe by providing handmade cards for them to write letters home to their loved ones and supporters. In fact, OWH recently "deployed" its 2.5 millionth card--that's 2,500,000 handmade cards that have gone to military personnel so that they can keep in touch with their families since 2007. I am very pleased to be a tiny part of this amazing project. 

To see a recent local news segment about OWH founder Sandy Allnock and her mission, click HERE, and then click on the photograph. When you see Sandy open her door to pick up a box of donated cards, look closely at the return label. I'm pretty sure that's a Club Scrap label--and those cards are from CS members!!

OWH has guidelines to follow for submitted cards on their site. Another way to help is by donating money to help SEND those boxes overseas. It costs quite a bit to mail those packages! All donations are tax-deductible.


I do wish OWH was around when my hubby was overseas!

OWH WCMD Blog Hop!

 

Isn't the modern world full of acronyms? You often have to be "in the know" to understand what they mean, right? Here's what my title means:

OWH=Operation Write Home

WCMD=World Card Making Day

 And you probably know what a "blog hop" is! 

I am so excited to be part of the 2013 OWH WCMD Blog Hop--I can't wait to see the amazing creations for this year! Our task was to use an OWH sketch to create a thank you card.  I chose Sketch #8. I like the two-tone background and circular focal image.

And here is my completed card. All the papers are from Club Scrap's Random Doorways collection (January 2013). For the stamps, I used CS's Tribal (August 2013) circular images unmounted stamps and the greeting wood-mounted stamp from Milestones (December 2008). The perfect circles were cut with Spellbinders Nestabilities dies--love those things!

Here's a close-up of the greeting--a bit blurry (I think my camera focused on the ric rac--also from Random Doorways). 

 

Thanks for taking a look at my blog. Enjoy the rest of the hop, and I hope you are inspired to make some cards for the troops!

ODBD Challenge Entry

This month's Our Daily Bread Designs challenge for OWH is wheels. There are some fantastic cards already submitted, and you can see all the other entries here. I decided to play with two different "wheel" stamps. The first card has all Club Scrap materials (except the brown brads). The papers and ribbon are from the Random Doorways kit (January 2013). The bicycle and tire tread stamps are from Wheel & Sprocket (August 2006), while the "got adventure?" stamp was part of the Great Outdoors collection (October 2007). To add a bit more texture to the card, I embossed the bicycle with the verdigris embossing powder that was included in the WOW Christmas 2012 package. 

When I ordered some OWH stamps from Stamper's Best, I found this really cute vintage pram stamp. These cards were made with various CS papers and Stampin' Up! ribbon and welcome stamp. The cards are simple, but sometimes it's nice just to play with a bit of paper, ink, and ribbon--back to the basics of stamping.

I'm looking forward to seeing what October's Our Daily Bread Designs challenge will be!