OWH update and a little blog candy

Hi Everyone.  Happy Tuesday.  Hope you are having a great start to the week.

So, I am finished.  FINITO.  All cards have been prepped, sorted, stamped, tucked, put into protective plastic sleeves and posted off to OWH.   ALL of them! 

Huge thanks and shout outs to BETH, CAM, CAROL, CINDY, COLLEEN, DORIS, GILL, JANET, JEANNE, KELLY, LISSIE, LYNNE, MARCIA, MARILYN, MAUREEN, PAMELA, RACHAEL AND SANDY.

These wonderful ladies all supported this fabulous cause and I was so proud to pack up all of their beautiful creations and send them along to OWH with a check and a prayer for each and every one of the troops who will be sending these fabulous cards home!

Now, I had promised two prize draws for this card drive.   But, because there were so many submissions and so many people participated, I decided to up that to 4 shopping sprees with Stampin/ Up! courtesy of moi.  1 person will get the grand prize of $100 and I will give out 3 $50 prizes.    

In addition to these, I thought we should have a little fun.  I'm not going to tell you – just yet – how many cards were submitted for the drive.   I thought we would play a little game for some blog candy.

Ready to try for some blog candy? 

What do you have to do?

Easy!    Just leave a message on this blog post telling me the number of cards you think were posted off to OWH for this card drive. 

The two people with the closest guesses will win blog candy.   What will they win?  Well… how about this…. 1 person will win a brand new TAG IT set.   1 person will win TAGS 4 YOU.  Both sets are clear mount and have some stamps perfect for the upcoming holidays.  Not too shabby, eh? 🙂

You have until Friday 9/27 at 8pm CST to leave your guess.  At 8pm on 9/27 I will identify the winners of the blog candy – as well as the winners of the shopping sprees with SU.  The winners of the shopping spree will be chosen using random generator.   I will put 1 number in for each 20 cards submitted.  I will also have a couple of spot prizes to hand out for those that didn't win the grand prizes.

In the meantime, I have the last two teaser photos to share with you from Lissie and Janet.   Before I show you those, I wanted to give a big shout out to Sandy who sent me 80 beautiful cards.  I needed to get the cards in the box and sent off, so wasn't able to photograph them. However, you can check out the talented Sandy's blog – it's really worth the visit!  Sandy, I know you had to send these cards twice, but I am so grateful that you did!

Let's start with Lissie's awesome card.  

Ok… so this card just makes me smile!   I also love the colors, they really remind me of the ocean on a warm summer's day.  I love the stamped vertical element tied with the little bit of ribbon and the circular elements on the side echo the color of the crab – and his eyes.  The espresso anchors everything and ties into the sentiment.   Fabulous … and you just know that this is going to bring a huge smile to the recipient's face.  It's easy to see where Rach gets her crafting gene – from the talented Lissie!

Now, on to Janet's card beautiful card.  I'm thinking there's a beach theme going on tonight.  🙂

Janet is the queen of sponging.  The sponging on this card is gorgeous.  I can feel the slight breeze rippling the ocean as that sun sets behind the island.  The shading is perfection.  A white gel pen was used over the palm tree and makes it pop off the page.  The double top note helps to frame the whole scene and the thank you on white pops from the page.  Janet used a lot of sponging techniques on her cards and she really is an expert, as you can see from this awesome card.

Well, you have seen some fabulous teaser cards and I hope they have inspired you as they did me.  Now that the cards are posted off to OWH, I can spend some time making slide shows from the card submissions.

I cannot thank all of these wonderful women who participated enough….. I am so grateful to all of you and I know the troops and their families will be even more grateful!

On a personal note:

I am so glad that my travel photographs have stirred up memories or emotions for so many of you.  Traveling is one of the key things in my life.   I wasn't able to travel as a child, but have certainly made up for it since then and it is my pleasure to share some of these amazing places, and people, with you.    I've made it a theme to visit the homes/museums of authors whenever I can; Pushkin, Tolstoy, Austen, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Byron, Bronte, Montgomery, Hardy, Potter, Ruskin, Churchill, the carving that inspired Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat, Gordimer, Bosman… I'm sure there are others, but I can't remember!   it's wonderful to walk where they walked and to see the environment around them and try to see how they were inspired. 

I remember as a young girl – maybe 8 or 9.   Pammie and I went on one of our long walks around the local botanical gardens.   It was summer and very warm.  We sat on a bench opposite a statue of Queen Victoria and an elderly lady sat down beside us.  She started talking to us and I remember we got onto the subject of travel.   I remember telling her that when I grew up I was going to visit Australia and Africa and the jungles of South America and Paris and Rome and Venice and the penguins in Antartica.  She was very kind and asked me what I wanted to see and what I thought the weather would be like.  Of course, at that time, I never thought I would actually visit any of those places… but I sure wanted to.  However, it did cement in my brain that I wanted to do that.  Many times over the years I have thought of that elderly lady and how much that little conversation inspired me!

So, if any of my photos or stories have inspired any of you to visit these places either in your mind or physically, then that makes me happy :-)  For those of you who I have taken on a trip down memory lane, you were so lucky to have visited these places before me!

Don't forget to leave a message guessing how many cards you think we raised for this card drive!

As always, thank you for your visits and your comments.   Warm hugs and prayers to those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee