Operation Write Home Be my Valentine Bloghop Today!

Welcome to my little contribution to the Operation Write Home Be My Valentine Blog Hop! I’m so glad that you made it over here and hope that I am able to provide you with some fun and inspiration so you too can create some Valentine’s cards to send over to soldiers serving our country. If you didn’t come here from Susie at SA Scrapping Gal, then please make sure to hop over there for a looksy at what she’s doing. When you’re done on my blog please hop over to Jamie’s site Glitter, Paper, Stamps, Oh My! There are over 100 blogs participating in this awesome event today so please visit as many as possible and leave some shout-outs. If you come across a link that doesn't work you can get to the beginning page at OWH here. I know the rest of the folks love comments as much as I do *hint, hint*.

Now before proceeding with my contribution today, here are some formalities:

The reason this is called “Be My Valentine” blog hop is because we want you all to start making Valentine cards to send overseas to our soldiers. The deadline for getting those to your shipper is January 7, 2011. It’s never too early to start planning. Contact your friends and family and maybe even set up a little get-together so others can join in on the fun. I did my first group card-making session for the Christmas holiday cards and I tell ya, it was a barrel of laughs and so rewarding! With each card that I made I whispered a little prayer for the soldier who would hold it in his or her hands and so lovingly write their personal message to send home to family or friends. There are tons of suggestions, tutorials and card galleries on the OWH site. They even have a page that tells you how to get a card-making party set up. It’s on their Event’s tab. If you haven’t heard yet, I am the daughter of a career Army dad and also served with him in the Army for three years; so I know firsthand how much OWH means to our soldiers! Oh yes, the deadline for mailing Christmas cards has already passed, but you can always start planning for next year.

2.       Did you know that Operation Write Home was a finalist in the JoAnn’s Craft for a Cause? Well, in fact, we are one of three finalists and we NEED YOUR HELP to win the $50,000 Grand Prize! You can vote once during every 24 hour period, so please go vote and then bookmark the site so you can vote every day!

Ok, so now ladies and gentlemen, let’s get On with the Shee-ohhh (if you’re not old enough to know what that means, just ask your parents or grandparents and they’ll have lots of funny stories to share!) Here are a few of the cards I made to send to OWH for Valentine’s Day. I wanted to show you that cards can be very simple or very ornate, most of mine fall in the simple category. My camera was not cooperating with me, so I’ve just put three pics below and made a slide show of some of the others. The first card below is a sheet of paper from the DCWV stack cut to fit the front of the card, then a sticker and some ribbon from my stash to bling it up a bit. (I'm giving away one of those Love and Wedding stacks in my blog candy at the end of this message.)

The card below is a mosaic made out of paint chip samples. Fun and something your kids would love doing!

To make the card below I inked up the brayer to create my own background, then stamped words on top.

I just took a sneak peek at one of the other participants at Creations by Christie and am so happy to see that she posted a video tutorial of one of the techniques I used on a couple of the cards in the slide show below. (PHEW, got me off the hook!) You've GOT to go watch it and learn how to use your Cuttlebug embossing folder to ink up your card while embossing it at the same time! The one below that uses that technique is the one with the 1/4 inch red ribbon bow over the heart. Since I'm all about using up what I have and couldn't bear to part with the ink left on my brayer I slipped a piece of onion skin paper over the embossing folder and brayered over it, leaving a faint design on the paper. Then I cut a rectangle in the front of the card and glued that paper on as a window to what was inside. It's the one with the red sequins in each corner. If you have any questions about any of the techniques please ask and I'll prepare a tutorial. So far I haven't gotten brave enough to attempt a video tutorial, but with a little prompting maybe I'll try!

Card components:

Paper:  DCWV Love and Wedding, StampinUp Ruby Red

Ink:  SU Ruby Red classic

Sentiments:  Making Memories Express It

Embellishments:  ribbon from stash, stickers by Special Moments

Cuttlebug and Sizzix embossing folders
Stickles and Studio G Glitter Writer

I've got some candy for one lucky winner and it's full of stuff you can use to make tons more Valentine's Day cards for our soldiers. Please leave a comment with your email address and become a follower, then I'll draw the winner randomly on Monday. Thank you so much for participating today!

Now, please please hop over to Jamie’s site Glitter, Paper, Stamps, Oh My!