Operation Write Home needs everyone's help!

Operation Write Home made it in the top three in Joanns contest Craft for a Cause and now they need everyone's help. O.W.H is up against two wonderful organizations - the American Cancer Society and Project Linus who do such great work....but OWH needs to win this one for our heroes! Please go HERE to vote everyday until December 4th.

Now that voting's underway, here is more about how it seems to be working:

• It's effectively one vote per household; they're blocking IP addresses from voting more than once to prevent fraud. That means all your home computers count for ONE vote, since they all log onto the internet through the same IP address. Send your hubby to work with the url, and your cardmaking child can use their phone if it's not using the home's internet connection. Just make sure everyone's voting just once.
• Wait a full 24 hours before voting again. Even if trying from your work computer, you'll be blocked from voting if it hasn't been a full 24 hours. That means vote at the same time each day to maximize the number of votes you can cast all month long!

About Operation Write Home

Operation Write Home began in 2007 with just a few cards made by friends on a message board; what began as an outlet for a hobby has become a much larger mission to help heroes keep in touch with home - and the effort has been joined by thousands of cardmakers!


OWH receives handmade cards donated by crafters across America (and beyond!). Cardmakers range in age, location, and level of skill; cards are provided by individuals and groups, schools and scouts, companies and churches. All have one primary thing in common: a desire to serve those who defend our nation!

Cards are mailed to one of our volunteer shippers in quanities both small and large. The shippers process, sort, repair, and document each donation, and then pack and ship boxes of over 300 cards each to our contacts. Our heroes request cards (families may also request on their behalf; we serve all branches in all deployed locations.

Please support this great organization by VOTING for Operation Write Home every day.  Thank You!!

'I Am Roses' and 'Lindy's Stamp Gang' - perfect together :)

Hello blogland - even though I should have been working on more Valentine cards for the Operation Write Home "Be My Valentine" blog hop next weekend, I wanted to play with some products I just bought from  from Lindy's Stamp Gang  and I Am Roses .  Holy cow.... I'm in big trouble..... I'm hooked!  From Lindy's Stamp Gang I bought a set of Starburst Stains and a set of Magical Micas that I wanted to use to color some mulberry flowers from I Am Roses. 

These two products work GREAT together!  There have been lots of videos on YouTube on how to do this and I wanted to try making some of my own.

The Magical Micas were so easy to use - only a water brush and a paper towel needed.  When the flowers are dry they have a pretty glimmer to them, not a glitter.  I'll post a picture of the finished flowers tomorrow...I can't believe I just deleted the one I took earlier today and I'm just too pooped to go back down to my craftroom and take another.  But if you're looking for a good source of mulberry flowers, go check out I Am Roses - the quality is excellent, the shipping is fast (all the way from Thailand to NJ took only one week), and the selection of colors and sizes and styles are endless.  The flowers are so similar to Prima but the prices are so much lower.  Now I'm heading back to Lindy's Stamp Gang to place another order.  This is going to be trouble.....

Valentine's everywhere!

I'm so confused.....for the past few days I've been working on my cards for the Operation Write Home "Be My Valentine" Blog Hop so I had to break out my Valentine's papers and stamps.  But last week I was working on my own Christmas cards.  Yesterday I was taking down and putting away the Halloween decorations and taking out the Thanksgiving stuff.  What season is it???  Here's a quick picture of my scrap desk today - red hearts  and cupids everywhere!

I had fun cutting hearts and cupids from several Cricut cartridges and hunted through a ton of digital images to color tomorrow.  Check out the Operation Write Home link above and join the blog hop on November 13th.  Well, back to my desk..enjoy the rest of your day!

My daughter is one Tough Mudder

Hello blogland! Here's a little something different for 'ya today...this past May, my daughter Amy participated in the first Tough Mudder event which raises money for the Wounded Warrior Project.  She had never done anything like this before, and I gave her a lot of credit for wanting to participate in this 7+ mile obstacle course with 5,000 participants at a ski resort in PA. Not only did she finish, she did it in 3 hours and 25 minutes.

She had mud in places that mud wasn't meant to go! It took 2 showers, 3 baths, and a whole bottle of shower gel to get her clean again.  She walked a little funny for a few days, but she didn't mind - she finished, had fun and raised some money for a very worthy cause.

Well, my kid didn't learn her lesson the first time about playing in the mud and will be doing another Tough Mudder on November 20 - but this time she's got a team of friends doing it with her.  This course is approximately 12 miles long with 20,000 participants - it will be wetter, muddier and it will be November.  'Nuff said?  She's been training so hard for this and I'm supporting her all the way......but I'm still not sure if I'm tough enough to watch it this time.

For more information please see the links above, or if you'd like to make a donation to the Wounded Warrior Project, please visit Amy's donation page here.  She's nursing a bad cold today, so I'm headed back to the kitchen to finish up a big pot of chicken soup for my little mud player.