Auntie Joan Stamping

Thanks to a bunch of wonderful, helpful volunteers, we did it!  We made 600 handmade cards for the troops.  I know some of our helpers probably dreamed about small, red cherries for a week after they punched out 300 of them, but all the effort was worth it.

We want to thank everyone who helped, as well as The Office Boss for their donation of envelopes.  A special thanks go out to Jim and Debbie Webster of American Home Inspection, for coming into our office on Monday to help with the final assembly and envelop stuffing. 

After consulting with the Operation Write Home folks, we decided to make a birthday card suitable for kids or adults and a 'thinking of you' card.  Both are in high demand.  We used the Stampin' Up cupcake stamp and punch sets to make the cupcakes.  For the window 'thinking of you' cards, we used the Movers & Shapers Big Shot die and matching punch in alternating colors underneath the punched squares for some pretty layering.  The small flowers were done with one of the Itty-Bitty punches and dressed up with a silver brad.  The neutral colors were suitable for men or women.

The cards looked so wonderful in their stacks getting ready to be mailed.  All the bright colors and varied papers were so cheerful and the cupcakes were so very cute.  It was hard to put them into boxes to send them off.  We filled two large U.S. Postal Service flat rate boxes and they were completely stuffed and very heavy.

We joined many, many other stampers to ship a total of 18,118 cards.  That's amazing!  Here is the blog entry from Operation Write Home where we were listed.  You'll have to scroll to the bottom of the post, as we're listed under Veronica, Auntie Joan from Truckee, CA.

We're very proud and thankful to all our helpers for allowing us to send so many handmade cards to our troops.  We hope you'll join us next year. We'll close this post with a video short from the New York Times on how important mail is to our troops.  Although this story isn't specifically about the cards we sent, you'll see how important it is to keep in touch with our service men and women serving overseas.