Memorial Day Operation Write Home (OWH) Card making parties

In April and May my children and I have been quite busy hosting card making parties for military appreciation month via Operation Write Home. In a nut shell it's a non-profit dedicated to supporting the troops ability to write home on handmade cards made and donated by crafters.

Another aim is to provide AnyHero mail to keep the troops' morale and spirits up during this season in their lives. We focused on AnyHero mail to thank the troops for our freedoms. During three parties we created a total of 150 thank you letters, pictures and coloring pages. Participants were children from just a few months old to 12 years old.

Once I told my daughter about the cause and provided her with coloring pages, she completed several herself, enlisted friends and asked to bring this community service event to her 3rd grade class and her multi-level girl scout troop (daisies, brownies and juniors). Lastly, we presented the idea at my son's day care that educates children newborn to kindergarten through art.

This is my daughter. Operation Write Home suggests pictures without faces to protect the children's identities. So that's why these pics are taken from different angles. We wanted to show the children working on their thank you notes and coloring pages.

There are many organizations that you can work with to support our troops. I hope you are inspired to   get yourself and the children involved in this very needed year-round cause. It was a pleasure to volunteer and share the spirit of community service with the children and I am especially proud of my daughter for seeing the vision and carrying it further.

La-Vie

Haul-ellujah!!!

Greetings!!!!!!!! I'm back with more haul photos!! If you missed my last haul post check it out here. This time I went to the Scrapbook Expo in Oaks PA April 11-12th. 

I got a FREE ticket from Eric at Paper Wizard and they also gave me this cool shirt!! I used the show special to purchase many titles and elements for my pages. They have the BEST laser cut titles. Some assembly is required but it really gives your pages that wow factor!

I found even more peel off stickers that I had to get at the Stamp On It booth!

I am crazy for shimmer sheets, greeting farm stamps, peel off stickers and I got my fill at the Krazy Kreations booth! I love that they had the newest styles of peel offs like the dragonfly ladies.

I got some cool My Mind's Eye collections, some foil striped washi, stained glass stamps and some bling from Scrap That!

It's Cheaper Than Therapy! had some amazing deals on embossing folders and I came across the Vintaj brand of folders for square cards. I wanted them all but was good and only bought one.

There was a Creative Memories rep there cleaning out her inventory so I decided to grab this Cricut cart. Sports images always are hard to find. My daughter plays lacrosse and most things are boy oriented of that sport. I hope there's something cool on here I can use for coaches gifts etc no matter which sports my kids chose.

Escape scrapbooking has AMAZING deals on stamps (check the price tags!!) and many other items. I posted most of my haul from there in my last post. I also got some obama card stock.

Here are my make 'n takes from Stamp scrap Art tour in May 2013.

I hope you enjoyed my haul and will get yourself some crafty goodies at the nearest craft expo!

La-Vie

Where's My Craft Hauls???

I promised to share my haul from 3 recent craft shows to give y'all some ideas of which crafty items are worth buying. I also decided to share some make 'n takes that I did along the way to mix it up and keep you inspired! Thanks for stopping by... here we go!!

The Stamp Scrap Art Tour was here May 3-4 in Oaks, PA (outside of Philly). Betty Locco, close to my heart rep lead this amazing little take out box make 'n take and even had a mini (small as my pinkie thumbnail) example of this box as well. The box is cut from one of the CTMH/Cricut carts.

She had a $5 clearance bin in her booth so I got a couple of Christmas sets and a fall set. I especially loved the bling embellishments (not on sale but gorgeous!).

Stamps n' More led this CAS make 'n take. I bought the stamps to recreate this card at home.

Of course I had to add some shimmer with my wink of stella pen!!

We got a goodie bag at the make 'n take party. Here's some of the contents.

One of my favs Seaside Stampin' Ink lead a make 'n take using these stamps. I had to get them!

Repeat Impressions came out with wine stamps that include my name!!  I had to get them! They also had some stained glass window type stamps that could make great backgrounds. I got some more pop dots to make the spinner cards... couldn't find the right size anywhere!! And some patriotic stamps for my waterfall cards.

Tessler Stamps/Stencils has the best glue with a brush built into the cap. And I got some dies experiment with cutting soda cans and shimmer sheets and all kinds of sparkly goodness!! Her make n take featured the butterflies and my daughter fell in love. SO we had to get them!!

Do you Zentangle??? Well I am getting started with a healthy collection of stamps from Just For Fun!

My daughter's raffle prize and gift bag included these stamps.

I am crazy for peel off stickers!! You can do so much with them and they are so inexpensive. I have gone crazy (CRAZY I say) collecting these. I got these from Christina Lifestyles/Scrappigators. I also scored some Technique tuesday stamps and stamps by Hot off the Press. The boots by Stampendous were calling my name

Ok, game OVER. I lost my mind and ALL my $$$ at the Stampers Anonymous booth buying all the tim holts distress glitter, shadow embossing folders, distress inks, translucent embossing paste, the new ink daubers and refills, watercolor paper and stamps.

I won this giga circle punch in the raffle!! woo hoo!! great addition to my collection.

Here's a shot of all the make n takes my 9 year old daughter did unassisted!!! She's awesome!

Stamplistic has the best booth with all the sparkly layered goodness! I bought 2 of their special stamps and plan to get layering soon! I also spied this punch dr spray. figured it would come in handy!

Art Gone Wild has some really interesting stamps!

Darcie's Country Folk has the cutest stuff! They have stamp sets that coordinate with flat back buttons for the faces. They only have boys for the chocolate faces. I have asked for girls. In the meantime I am going to hook something up and hope it looks like a girl with their stamps and buttons.

Rubber Cottage has some really inspiring sentiment stamps.

Inky Antics had a great sale on all you see! Honeycomb paper and honey pop stamps!! Oh MY!!

I also ordered online from scrapbooking made simple. Here's what I got!!

While at scrapbook expo last month I got a million things from Escape Scrapbooking!!

I hope you enjoyed this haul post!

La-Vie