Creative Cards, and Beautiful Nature!

Here are a few of the cards with original designs made by the women in the prison crafting program. They're ready to send as donations to Operation Write Home, the organization that supplies free handmade greeting cards to deployed members of the military. Although they have limited materials, I'm impressed with how creative the ladies can get. I call one of them "Confetti Queen" as she laboriously cuts and applies the tiny bits to many of her card creations.

And I wanted to share the beautiful sight that greeted me this morning on my way to walk the dog. The air was cool and fresh, you can see Lindy the horse in her paddock, and in the foreground under the tree was an amazing spider web. It went from the lower branches to the ground. And the tree was festooned with other webs. You can see more on the tall grass in the paddock since the light dew made them show up and glisten. 

This is a close-up. Impressive and intricate! It's just the size I'm sure to tangle with on some unsuspecting walk, and wonder what the thin and invisible substance is that damply clings to my arms.

The Tiniest of Scraps...

Putting paper scraps together to make greeting cards is about as much fun as doing the same with fabric scraps for quilts. The downside is even more tiny scraps to manage and store. I made these two cards as samples for the crafting program I volunteer for at a women's prison. Both are simple designs because we have limited cutting tools and supplies for making the cards. But that hasn't stopped us.

The design for this card came from the Operation Write Home website. They provide dozens of sketches for card layouts. This organization is the destination for the cards we're making. So we've made both pattern and freestyle designs, and we're close to mailing out our first selection of cards. There's lots of satisfaction in cardmaking. 

Summer Girls...

The piles, stacks, and files of paper in the sewing room have been neglected for awhile. So it was time to put my hand back to cardmaking and other paper crafts. I made this birthday card for a friend using an ArtChix image. The vintage girl looks so fresh and pretty ... just perfect for the start of Summer. Looking at her, I can almost feel the beach breeze!

       And my new "job" also involves some papercrafting. I've been involved since April in helping to coordinate a crafting and sewing program at a nearby women's prison. The women who enroll in the program are part of a faith and character development initiative, also called betterment program. They will report to the program daily, and while there, will develop skills to craft and sew items of use to community organizations. So far they have started crochet hats for patients undergoing chemotherapy, begun to learn cross-stitch, and sewn some simple four-patch quilt blocks. We've also done some cardmaking. Many of the participants are women of faith. Despite the limited supplies, one of them designed a card like the one below (my version of her design). They call the design "Praise Girl" to express their gratitude for the opportunity they have to learn new skills and produce useful items that can benefit others. Isn't she cute? I just had to make one, too. The new volunteers who come to oversee the program are finding it very worthwhile and rewarding, as do I. So helping to get the program operational has taken quite a bit of time and been my focus recently, but I believe it's time well spent.

Don't Forget to Write...

Our sewing and crafting group members really enjoy working on projects for worthy causes. Two of us spent a morning recently making cards to donate to Operation Write Home. Their mission is to support our military by providing them with handmade blank cards on which they can send home greetings to their loved ones. It's a huge effort, and the organization gets lots of support. They are working on their second million cards! And their website contains all sorts of helpful material, including inspiring letters from members of the military.

There is a special drive for "thinking of you" cards right now. So we focused on that for our efforts. Here is what we came up with so far. The card at the top has a cut-away flap that reveals an insert strip of patterned paper on the inside. I saw an instructional video for it on Two Peas in a Bucket's "Finally Friday" series. My cardmaking friend Prue and I agreed that we could spend hours looking at all the wonderful ideas and videos online! But we also decided we better get on with it. We made a happy mess, and these cards were the result.

We kept the designs simple, and for a couple of the cards we used blank cards that had a background design already imprinted. That way we just had to "tart them up", as the saying goes.

Now See Here...

Can't you almost hear this sassy little girl saying something like "now see here?" She's got 'tude for sure. There is something so appealing about vintage images of women, and even little girls, in hats! I just love them. So for my friend Joanne's birthday, I made the greeting card with this little one stamping her foot. She's just so cute and funny. I thought I was drawn to the image because she "was" Joanne, who always had an affinity for hats when growing up. But no... it turns out that Joanne says she's me. To a "T". Oh my goodness! Really? Who knew?? Amazing how others know us better than we know ourselves, isn't it.

I forgot to take a photo of the card before sending.. but Joanne obliged with the scan. I wanted to show it here, and to mention all the new things I used and learned while making it. It's got tissue tape, eyelets, lace, and white gel pen. The image is a free one from The Graphics Fairy. It was fun to make, and I especially like working with the vintage images and sewing trims.

Anyhow, making cards and stitching paper remains a big fascination of late. Our small crafting and sewing group recently held a cardmaking session. Here are some more of the goods... Quilting friend Prue made most of these. She's very talented with fabric and paper.. a real knack. She even lines the envelopes, which is a lovely touch. The yellow one above is my favorite.

Sort of Looks Like a Quilt...

But it's paper. Our small sewing and craft group had a cardmaking workshop last week. What fun. There were scraps and bits all over the place. But we managed to make some cute cards. The patchwork heart card shown above was a kit made up by quilting and cardmaking friend, Prue. She made all the elements. I simply had to arrange and glue them in place. She even provided a template for the heart so I can make more of these. Pretty! I like the pen-stitching she did on this one.

And here's an assortment of other cards we made. This was our practice session. We'd like to get familiar enough with cardmaking materials and techniques that we can participate in Operation Write Home. This organization gathers handmade cards and provides them to deployed military men and women in order to encourage them to keep in touch with home. Based on the work everyone did last week, I think we're up for it.

Paper scraps may be worse the fabric ones... they multiply, and we found it difficult to throw anything away! We'll have more to show sometime soon.