TK is Addicted to Stamping: Thankfulness and giving back...

Today I just wanted to say how much I cherish all my friends, and am just so happy to be living now where we have so much and have such instant communication with friends and loved ones. And it's so easy to keep up with folks these days with telephones and e-mails and all. We are truly blessed.

Pete and I have been re-watching the series "Foyle's War", set in WWII England in a village on the coast and recounts daily life of a DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) in the local force. It's a fascinating look at how the war affected the folks back home from nightly bombing in London, to food and everything else rationing. And all the while the war was going on, crime was still going on as you would expect.

But the thing that gets me is how we take for granted the every day things today. Need something at the store? Just pop in the car, drive there and buy it. What's for dinner? Anything you can imagine. And yet, in one scene in this series, at the station, they were raffling off a big beautiful onion. One of the officers remarked "I haven't seen one of these since last year"...and another scene when the female officer was offered an orange: "I haven't seen one of these since before the war." No wonder my mother always proudly had a bowl of oranges on the table in the winter for the holidays. I remember her telling me when she was little, their Christmas present was an orange in their stocking and a pair of new (used) shoes, if they were lucky.

Can you imagine? Just stop and think how much we have...it makes me hang my head. They walked practically everywhere, or rode a bike. No wonder no one had a weight problem.

It's a wonderful series, but really makes me think of how much we have to be grateful for. I think this is a big part of why I make cards for OWH. You can see in the eyes of the Mom who gets a card from her boy or girl, and how those few lines make her smile or tear up. It's like having a piece of your child there in your hands. It's just not the same to get an e-mail. So I eagerly traipse off to my craft table (mess headquarters) and sling paper and stamps and ribbon. It gives me a daily lift and I smile to myself when I think that maybe one of my little cards will go to a soldier, sailor, marine or airman and then get sent back home to someone who will treasure it...and re-read it many times...and maybe even take it with them to bed to dream about their loved one far from home. (Yeah, goose bumps.)

Tomorrow evening we are having another monthly meeting of our OWH card making group at Ellen's house and I'll be busy today making kits to make more cards to send. But I wanted to share pics of my latest cards I'll be sending to OWH and some of the cards I made for Any Hero letters. I made the one with the little bunny in the inner tube because last month there was a challenge to use water in a design. Well, I didn't make the challenge, but it gave me inspiration for this card and the one with the duck running to the beach with his surf board. He was headed towards the water, does that count? Maybe I'll get to one of these challenges one of these days. :)

Enjoy.

OWH Sketch #63.
Card stock from my stash.
B&T* paper - CTMH.
Red flowers - ink, stamp, punch - Stampin' Up.
Surf's Up stamp - Maui Cows (out of business now)
Seagrass stamp - Stamp Francisco
Sentiment - Rubber Soul

This one I made by laying down "stripes" of color from Tim Holtz Distressed Inks line on a white piece of card stock. Then I matted it with some pink CTMH card stock I had in my stash. I was inspired by cards with beach scenes from other crafty folks on the OWH FB page. And I was thinking of water from the OBDB challenge last month. Then I tore a strip of Kraft paper for the beach and stamped a portion of a sea shells stamp from Great Impressions. The bunny in the inner tube is from Inky Antics. He is colored with Copics and fussy cut out and popped up with dimensional take from My Precious (double sided mounting tape from Scotch), and the sentiment is from Circle of Honor by Paper Smooches. I don't know about you, but beach scenes always make me go ahhhhh.

This is a set of cards I made that turned into Any Hero cards! I had the eagles already stamped and I thought, hey, I'll make cards with these. I'll take them to the meeting so we can write notes in them for our Heroes.