Operation Write Home Sketch Challenge #220

This week's OWH sketch challenge was fun because it didn't require any special measurements, just pretty much eyeballing everything. Today I received a thank you note on an OWH card from a Lieutenant Colonel in Ft Leonardwood, Missouri. It was absolutely the MOST perfect timing because that was my father's first official active duty station in the late 50's where he served as an Army Drill Sergeant. He retired after 21 years and I had the distinct pleasure of serving with him for a couple of those years in Germany. I'll be making a memorial post for him as soon as I'm up to it. He took his last breath on Saturday, April 12th and we're still in the midst of preparing for his memorial service. Making cards has always been very therapeutic for me and certainly helped me get through this day! Please keep my mom in your prayers. They were both living in the same nursing home and she slips in and out of alzheimers, but is aware of his death. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

Until I can get myself together enough to do a memorial post, here are a few pictures of my father.

With Mom wearing showing their support for the military troops.

Dad (on left) in Vietnam

Dad in his khakis

Dad at Ft Leonardwood

My Volksmarch hero!

My daughter's hero!

Dad and I

Posted with Blogsy

Celebrating veterans and watching airplanes fly

Today I had the pleasure of meeting some amazing WWII veterans and watching some of the airplanes that they used during WWII fly. I even got in free because I'm a veteran! Can't beat that for a good deal! I gave my husband the camera and let him capture the memories and found this picture below of my backside. I always wonder why we don't hand the camera to someone and ask them to capture the two of us standing in front of whatever it is we're there to see, but alas! I'm usually too mesmerized by the awesomeness of the attractions to think about the memory shot. Or maybe it's that I NEED a memory shot to help me remember to do that!

Before the air show I got a big stack of Halloween cards made for Operation Write Home. I need to cut the white paper to glue inside all the black cards, then get envelopes ready for them, finish using up the scraps and then move on to non-Halloween cards to fill a box and ship off before the end of August. It's nice spending time in my craft room again!

Tell me, what have YOU been up to lately?

OWH World Cardmaking Day Boghop

Welcome to the Operation Write Home World Cardmaking Day Bloghop! I am so excited to be participating another OWH bloghop! What a great opportunity to spend the day with a bunch of creative, talented bloggers and blog-readers who have a desire to make sure our military men and women have great greeting cards to send home to loved ones and friends. When you're done here just click on the hop picture above to get the list of other blogs.

 Many of you already know that I am military through-and-through, born in to an Army family who traveled the world over helping ensure the safety of our great nation. Then I also joined the Army and served alongside my father in Germany as possibly the first documented father-daughter team in the Big Red One. Well, Dad was an Infantryman and I worked in Personnel, but we served on the same base anyway and loved it!

If you're interested in learning more about OWH and how you too can get involved in making cards for our heroes click on the banner at the top of this post. I'd love to hear from you, so please take a minute to leave a comment below! Thanks for stopping by!

The card below is based on an Operation Write Home S&S Sketch #1 that you can find here along with a whole bunch of other free card sketches. I picked this one because it is also CAS (Clean and Simple) and a great way to make a whole bunch of cards with just a few cuts.

I think God is trying to tell me something...

If you're new to my blog and haven't seen last year's slide show about my father, a 21 year veteran of the U.S. Army, please take some time after reading this to view it on this post. Something I just now noticed while watching it for the umpteenth time is that in the picture of him peeking his head up over the top of the dining room table if you look directly over the top of his head you'll see a picture of me from my Army days. Yes, I also served in the Army as a WAC and was honored to serve on the same base with him in Germany in the early 70's!

Ok, so what's all this got to do with God and craft rooms and scrapbooking? Well, on Veteran's Day in 1991 the condo that I lived in with my young daughter blew up from a gas explosion, killing the neighbor boy and severely burning his older brother. My daughter and I escaped the burning building from the 3rd floor apartment and lost almost all of our belongings. My scrapbook from those Army days was tucked in the back of a huge walk-in closet situated right next to my waterbed and against an outside wall not exposed to the heat. Let me show you what my albums look like today. Now friends, when I say scrapbook please keep in mind that we're not talking about the elaborate one-picture-per-page full of embellishments that we do these days. We're talking plain cover, black pages full of pictures with some writing (who ever heard of journaling back then? Wasn't that for teenagers with diaries locked up and tucked under the mattress?) The first picture shows where the albums landed during recovery efforts and where they have remained to this day. Yes I've had them out a couple of times, but I guess the memories of that day have been too painful to want to actually DO anything with these albums. One I didn't photograph is from my year in California when I went out to attend LIFE Bible College, so it needs a whole album to itself.

The next two show the front my two albums from right before and during my 3 years in the army.

Miraculously none of the pictures appear to be damaged even after 20 years in that bag! *knocking on wood here at my desk!* The page edges are singed like the covers, but the pictures are fine as you'll see in the next picture. You'll be able to see a pic of me and my dad (I'm the one with the dark shorts on) with my Drill Sergeant. Yes I even got my hair cut and frosted just like her! Oh and pay no attention to those girls fooling around in the bottom picture. Things got a little wild and crazy around the barracks every now and then.

OK, moving on.... why do I bring up the past like this??? Well today I found out that I won a prize from a great gal over at Above Rubies Studio. It was graciously donated by a new company called Uniformed Scrapbooks of America and I get my choice of albums. Well for me it's a no-brainer and that link takes you to my choice.... ARMY!!! They'll even custom embroider the name and insignia rank. Since my dad and I had the same last name during that time period it will be just perfect. I've asked if they can do two insignias, one for each of our ranks, but even if they can just to one I'll be happy. What an awesome gentle reminder from God that it's high time I got busy re-doing these precious memories!!! My niece has recently uncovered a few boxes of Dad's military memorabilia that I've already laid claim to for a memory album. Hmmm, looks like I might need more than one, huh? lol! I also have every intention to do an oral history with him and now that they have all these recordable books it seems the time is right for that too. Oh so much to do with sooooo little time!

While you're over at Megan's studio you MUST watch her videos and find out about her new exciting product that I can't wait to try out! She does some awesome tutorials that you'll want to subscribe to on YouTube so you won't miss any of them.

Mom's Memory Album

For my mom's over 80 Birthday I made her a memory album and want to share it with you here. The front and back covers are chipboard covered with quilt batting and fabric. The rest of the pages are made out of cereal or other food product boxes. I made copies of a bunch of old pictures and tried to cover the span of years from the time her and Dad got married up through their 60th anniversary this past year. Here's a peek inside some of the pages:

 The layers below are made out of an upcycled junk mail envelope.

 The tags are upcycled manilla folders.

 That's me in the Army uniform with my mom, grandma and grandpa (her parents).

Isn't this the cutest picture below of my daughter at my college graduation in the WSU Shocker outfit I sewed and then there she is as a graduate. How time flies!