Scrap Card

I love saving scraps.  If you saw my stash of scrap paper, and I really mean scraps, you would fall off your chair.  I save just about everything.  I try to use it as often as I can, but there's still a lot of it.  Our 3rd Wednesday Stamp Club instructor, Sharon Armstrong, likes to use up her scraps, too.  She often shares projects with us that are made up mostly of scraps.  She does this to show us how we can use them and not waste so much paper.  I think it's funny, since she's in the business of selling paper, but, hey, that's one of the things that makes her a great instructor for our group.  One Wednesday a few months back, she shared this card project with us.

Isn't this a cute way to use up a few scraps?

If you're in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and you would like to join us for our 3rd Wednesday Stamp Club, please visit our Meetup.com page for more information.

Thank you!

I hope you had a great 4th of July.  Thanks for stopping by during our recent Craft Squad blog hop.  If you missed it, go back to yesterday's post and you should still be able to get in on the fun.  I'm still enjoying my 3-day holiday weekend, but I thought I'd share a quick post with you.  

Here's a card I made in the spring.  It features two of my favorite colors: turquoise and green.  I used my Stampin' Up Very Vintage roller to heat emboss the white flourishes onto the Bermuda Bay cardtock.  Neatly applied washi tape helps cover the less than perfect edges of the rolled stamp.  I cut the large scalloped square with my Cricut and punched and stamped the sentiment with Stampin' Up as well.

Thanks for stopping by.  I will have a few more cards to share with you in the next couple of days and then we'll get back to some layouts!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Thanks For Your Support!

Today, I wanted to introduce you to a pet project of mine…the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure.  As many of you know, I’ve been involved in breast cancer fundraisers for many years, including our annual “Pam’s Pals” (now called “Think Pink”) benefit crop.  In 2011, I also began walking in the SGK 3-Day along with Pam (of Pam’s Pals), my daughter, Christen, and several of our close friends and family.  I signed up in January of that year, not really knowing what I was getting myself into, and not really having anyone to walk for but my friend, Pam.

After training for weeks on end, mile after mile, and then spending the 3 days of the event walking 60 miles and sleeping in little pink tents, something in me changed.  I wasn’t just walking for Pam, I was walking for a lot of people.  I started to remember all the people in my life who had been touched by breast cancer and I even found out there was a history of it in my own family that I never knew about before.  I learned that we’re not done getting the word out.  People still don’t talk about it like they should and women still aren't getting the mammograms they need.  So for that reason, I just kept walking.

Since 2011, I’ve completed two 3-Day walks and am planning this year to be crew on a 3^rd.  Crew are basically the volunteers who run the event.  I’m going to be on camp services, picking up trash, helping set up tents, welcoming walkers into camp at the end of a long day … doing whatever is needed to support the walkers and keep everyone safe.  As a member of the crew, I’m not required to do any fundraising, but most of us do any way.  I decided not to ask my friends and family for direct donations this year, and instead am participating in a fun little fundraiser event with other crew members.  It’s a Casino Night Happy Hour event, and I would like to invite everyone in the DFW metroplex area to attend.  It’s at the Pop Diner at McKinney and Lemmon, and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun!

View details about the event here.

Each year, at the conclusion of the 3-Day event, I send out Thank You cards to all my donors, sponsors, and helpers.  It takes a lot of money and work to get there -- a walker who follows the training program will walk 580 miles before they even get to the event and they must raise a staggering $2300 each just to participate.  So I am always very, very grateful to anyone who helps me along the way.  Here’s a fun little card I made for my donors one year.  On the inside it says, “Thanks for your support!”

I used a Stampin' Up! embossing folder and Glimmer Paper.  The bra stamp was something I purchased a long time ago, so I don't have a clue who makes it.  Each card was a little different in that I stamped the bra onto pink patterned papers and cut out the cups to pop them up.  It doesn't really show on the photo above, so here's a little better view.  

I hope you’ll consider coming to our event.  If you do, come say “Hi” to me and give me your address so I can send YOU a card after the 3-Day, too!  Oh, and thanks for your support of this blog!  And don't forget to participate in our monthly blog hop!  Check out the post on September 20!

Thanks You're...

I just got back from a short trip to my hometown of Lubbock, Texas for my high school reunion.  I know many of you were celebrating the liberty and freedom we enjoy as Americans and where thinking about our military and the sacrifices they have made to ensure that freedom.  I spent my July 4^th holiday celebrating and honoring the life and passing of a very dear old friend.  Many of our friends came to pay their respects, some that we haven’t seen in over 25 years.  People came from hundreds of miles away, and we were able to reminisce about our friend and all of the kind and wonderful things he did for his friends.  We most assuredly did not thank him enough.

Giving thanks is something many of us forget to do.  Yes, we remember the big things, and we might offer up very sincere gratitude at appropriate times, but these days, most of us only send out Thank You cards in response to gifts and after someone has been a big help in some way or another.  But what about the little things?

Not that long ago, it was considered good etiquette to send a thank you for ANY gift, even Christmas and Birthdays, and for ANY favor or action that was done voluntarily.  Technically, we are supposed to tip and thank our mail carrier, our gardener, and even our paper carrier.  The subject of tipping aside, how long has it been since you thanked people for the ordinary things they do?  What about the accountant who found that extra $100 on your tax return, or the neighbor who collected your mail while you were on vacation?

Losing a friend has made me realize that I don’t thank a lot of the people in my life who deserve it.  I think I shall make a resolve to make a few more Thank You cards to keep on hand and to remember to actually use them…not just for the big things, but for the little things, too.  Especially, the little things.

Made with a mixture of Stampin' Up and Close to My Heart products.  Close to My Heart:  Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge and matching stamps, Love Doily stamp.  Stampin' Up: Butterfly Prints, Circle Circus, and Punch Bunch stamp sets, scalloped circle punch, and Core'dinations paper.