Thank You Hero - Free Digi

I'm spending some time this Memorial Day making and writing any hero notes. As my way of saying thanks to all who participated in this year's Memorial Day Weekend OWH Blog Hop for all the wonderful inspiration and creativity here is a digi.

As always feel free to use these images in any of your crafting projects. Post a link back here if you'd like to share it but please do not sell it, repost it or claim it as your own. Just click on it and then use the 'save as' command to save it to you computer.

God Bless America and each of her fallen heroes and all who serve and have served.


Happy Crafting Everyone!

OWH Blog Hop

Hello OWH hoppers! If you have lost your way you can return to the start at OWH Stars & Stamps

I hope that you're enjoying the hop as much as I am, but that you will also be taking some time this weekend to honor the true meaning of Memorial Day.

 Butterfly/Nature stamps & Journal Tag from the $1 Bin at JoAnn's

Paper DCWV Summer Stack • EK Success Notebook Edger Stamp

StampinUp - 'Definition of Love' Background & Miss You Sentiment

FIND OWH DEADLINES HERE IN THE MAILROOM.

I'm offering up the blog candy pictured here to a random winner I will draw on the morning of Wednesday, June 1st. If you'd like to be included just leave your email address with your comment (remember to spell it out —yourname at gmail dot com — to avoid getting on the spam lists). 

Thanks for stopping by and if you aren't already a member of the OWH family I hope today's hop encourages you to become a part of this wonderful group in whatever way you can.

Your next stop on the hop is

Elizabeth at Visions of Paper

Happy Crafting Everyone!

Let Us Not Forget

I know that the OWH Memorial Day Weekend Blog Hop is really exciting and a ton of fun for so many of us but let us not forget that Memorial Day is a sacred day and take time to honor and remember all who have made the greatest sacrifice on our behalf.  It is truly disrespectful to simply treat Memorial Day as just another vacation day or an opportunity to shop 'til you drop. Far too often, Americans take for granted the freedoms we enjoy. Those freedoms were paid for, with the lives of others, few of us ever knew. They came from large cities, small towns and all walks of life with one thing in common—LOVE OF and LOYALTY TO our great country. 

Wherever you find yourself this weekend I challenge you to remember the meaning of Memorial Day. Explain it to the kids, encourage  family and friends to discuss it. Attend a parade, visit a national cemetery, watch a military documentary. Since 1776, more than 1.5 million Americans have lost their lives while in uniform. Freedom is not free, and sacrifice is meaningless without remembrance. By honoring our nation’s war dead, we preserve their memory, their service and their sacrifice in the memories of future generations. It's the least we can do to honor all they have done for us.

One in A Million

I don't know about you but I'm still grappling with the thought of One Million Cards! WOW! I've started on my next box of cards and here is one of them.

If you want this sentiment to use on your own cards you can find it in an earlier post here.

Hope you're planning to 'hop' with OWH this weekend. They are always so much fun and full of inspiration and plenty of surprises along the way too!

Happy Crafting Everyone!
 

Happily Ever Crafter OWH Challenge

Though there are hundreds of wonderful challenges all over the internet, I typically find I have my hands full just trying to keep up with the ones at OWH Stars & Stamps blog and don't enter many others. This month though, when I came across this one being held by Ted at Happily Ever Crafter in honor of OWH I couldn't resist. I opted for a Clean & Simple design and this card will go into my next box of cards for OWH.

Ted's got a great blog, is offering a prize drawing for the challenge and is helping to spread the word about OWH. It doesn't get much better than that. The challenge closes on May 27th, so hurry on over if you want to join in the fun!

Happy Crafting Everyone!

Summer Fun

With my Father's Day cards long gone I officially entered Summer mode today. Traveling through the year and getting to use different stamps, images, themes and colors as the seasons pass is something I really enjoy about making cards for OWH.

As you can probably guess, these watermelons were created with two circle punches. Put them together, slice in half and draw the seeds (think random raindrop shape). I used a white gel pen to draw a line against the red circle to make it pop.

 

This Surfer Dude is free (for non-profit use) clip art from PhillipMartin.com and the paper is K&Co.

Happy Crafting Everyone!

Playing Catch Up

I got to spend most of my day crafting and though my main goal was to finishing my current box so that I could get it on it's way to Dixie I decided that I would also try to play catch up on the great tutorial and MWT going on this week at OWH.

Here's my take on the "Shirt & Tie" card. I did several variations, some that I trimmed the actual corners of the card off  and other where I left them on. I really think these would make great year-round guy cards and I'm going to make a mental note to include some from time to time.

The "Things with Wings" MWT was  just too much fun to pass up. I haven't really put this Stampin Up punch to much use yet but I thought it was a perfect fit.

While I had all my supplies unpacked, I decided I'd also make a go at this week's sketch. The scalloped borders & shapes are all stickers that came coordinating papers from Stampin Up.

Happy Crafting Everyone!

One Million Cards & A Digi to Celebrate

I'm excited to be a part of this wonderful, creative, dedicated group and this amazing milestone and I'm looking forward to the next million. What about you?

In celebration here is a digi sentiment for you in both a black & white and colored version.

  

As always feel free to use these images in any of your crafting projects. Post a link back here if you'd like to share it but please do not sell it, repost it or claim it as your own. Just click on it and then use the 'save as' command to save it to you computer.

Congratulations OWH and Happy Crafting Everyone!
 

Thank You Military Spouses & Families

I finally got an opportunity to color one of the wonderful state digis Sandy has created for OWH (find them here) and thought that it would make a nice card for a military spouse left behind on the homefront.

It's a beautiful image with lots of detail and though it took me awhile to color it the final image is well worth the effort. I decided I'd 'pop' it up off the card with some 3M foam tape.

  
My sincere thanks to all the military spouses and families and the sacrifices they make each and every day on behalf of our nation. You are truly special people and we are blessed as a nation to have you among us.

Unmounting Stamps

This week's Tuesday Tutorial demonstrates how to unmount traditional wood-mounted rubber stamps. A few years back I was face with having to fit all my crafting supplies into a smaller spot or sell them. I decided to unmount them. I used EZ Mount which adds a foam layer but you can also use a foam base layer when you stamp if you opt to use the Ailene's Tack-It-Over method as shown in the tutorial. For storage I use the thick storage boards that are 3 hole punched for storage in binders. I prefer to have my stamps organized by themes but I did keep a careful record of what the sets are named and what each one contains.

 

For anyone wondering how much space you would save these pictures show my entire red rubber stamp collection. Each plastic box (from the Container Store) measures 10" x 15" x 5.5" high and together they're holding 170 StampinUp stamps sets as well as numerous other individual stamps.

I did my unmounting over the course of a couple months, and it did take a lot of time and effort but in the end was well worth it as I was able to keep my collection intact.

Happy Crafting Everyone!

OWH Annual Memorial Day Bloghop

Believe it or not Memorial Day is almost here again and that means it's time for the OWH Memorial Day Blog Hop.

 

New simplified guidelines for posts and a sign-up form can be found here. Sign-ups close on May 25th at 11:59 p.m. If you have never participated in an OWH blog hop I urge you to consider it. They are loads of fun and a great source of inspiration.

Happy Crafting Everyone!

Sketch Challenge #67 - A Card for Dad

Happily I got a chance to do some creating this past weekend and I did this one based on this week's OWH sketch challenge. This is a nice sketch for creating a clean and simple card. I always seem to have a hard time incorporating tags in my designs but love them when I see someone else do it. I'm happy with how this turned out and plan to try using tags in a few more cards.

Happy Crafting Everyone!