Cards for the Kiddos

I finally have another full box of cards to send to Send A Smile 4 Kids, an organization dedicated to collecting and distributing handmade cards to children who are inpatient at Children’s Hospitals. They accept handmade kids’ cards for holidays, birthdays, and everyday cheer.  You might have seen the Sesame Street cards previously on my blog, but they go over so well with the little kids that I made more.

Cookie Monster

Elmo

Oscar

Big Bird

I try to find card patterns that are gender neutral, thereby being more useful to the organization, and this time I made some for older kids too.

Bat Signal

Minion

I hope they fulfill the goal of making a child smile even while sick in the hospital.  Have a great weekend!

Sheltering Tree Cards

These are some of the cards I made at last month’s weekend craft retreat.  My friend Ronda added Stampin’ Up’s Sheltering Tree set to our stash, and it is great for making cards for Send a Smile 4 Kids. This organization collects and distributes handmade cards for children who are inpatient at Children’s Hospitals around the country and in Canada.

Sheltering Tree with bicycle

Sheltering Tree window pane

Sheltering Tree Bicycle

The stamp images are gender neutral, which makes the cards that much more versatile, and I enjoy the painterly effect of the leaves, grass, and clouds.  Also, even though I did not watercolor paint these, I’m counting them as half a point for today’s World Watercolor Group prompt of bicycle.  😛

 

 

Creative Weekend

A few weekends ago I spent a terrific, creative weekend with some friends at a local B&B.  We spent the weekend working on various projects like scrapbooking, card making, needle work, etc.  I focused on making encouragement and birthday cards to be donated to a local hospital chaplain as well as Send a Smile 4 Kids.

Cheering You On

I used up a set of coordinating patterned paper from Stampin Up along with some great stamps from to make these cards.

You’re Doing Great

You Got This

You are Tougher

Don’t Be Afraid

I so enjoy making cards and hope they will help uplift each person who receives one.

Celebrate with Balloons

Birthday Balloons

How wonderful it is to spend time with creative friends – we help each other with ideas, share all our “toys,” and simply relax in the ease of our friendships.  Thanks, ladies, for such a pleasant, productive, renewing weekend!

Supplies:  My Creative Time Stamps, You Matter; Simon Says Stamps, Cheering You On; Lawn Fawn, Scripty Sayings; Stampin Up, Best Year Ever paper.

Changing Gears – Slowly but Surely – AND Halloween

Happy Saturday to you!  As I stated in my previous post, OWH declared Mission Accomplished so I have been focusing on making cards for SAS4Kids. Before I started with that, I decided to do some reorganization of my craft space and storage, which took a bit of time but felt good to finish. However, I am a very messy crafter and my work space still looks chaotic, but I know where everything is.

I just sent my first box of cards out to SAS4Kids and it included some Halloween cards, which are new for me. I never really made any for OWH but had stamps accumulated along the way including hand-me-downs from Julie and loaners from Marie (thanks, Julie and Marie!), so I spent some time coordinating those with paper colors, Stickles, patterned paper, sequins, etc.

Halloween Card, Witchy Kitty

Halloween Card, Stickled Stars Kitty

Halloween Card, Smell My Feet

I tried to make them sweet or silly rather than scary but figured older kids would want something a little edgier, but this is just about as edgy as I get for Halloween.

Halloween Card, Bats and Spider Web

The spider web is heat embossed which gives it a raised texture and I thought it turned out pretty cool.

Heat embossed spider web

I know Halloween is still a ways off but the cards are due in by October 1 in order to be distributed to the hospitals.  I had fun making them but don’t want to rush these last few days of summer, and I hope you have time to enjoy the sunshine a little more before we have to break out the sweaters and jackets.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Yes, it is true.  Operation Write Home’s mission is accomplished.  What a blessing this organization has been to help our service people, selflessly fighting for our freedoms so far away from home, keep in touch with their loved ones.  Closing the doors of OWH means that many of our deployed heroes have come home or hopefully will be home soon. The card makers finished strong and Sandy, the founder of OWH, has enough cards to send to her contacts through 2016.  I feel honored to have been part of OWH and hope my cards brought smiles to the faces of the recipients.

What to do with my cards?  After researching a variety of organizations, I have decided to donate cards to Send a Smile 4 Kids, which is an organization whose purpose is to create and collect donated handmade cards to be distributed to children while they are inpatients at Children’s Hospitals.  I plan to make cards for birthday, cheer, and encouragement for the staff members to give to the kids, as well as cards for kids to give to their parents for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

Because this is a time of transition with my card making, I thought it was a perfect time to update my blog and will be tweaking it in the next week or so.  I am excited to have a new focus for my cards and hope they elicit many smiles from kids.  Let me know what you think of my new design so far!