Here is this week's Our Creative Corner sketch:

And here's the card I made:

This is another card made to be sent to the great people at Operation Write Home.

We had some friends over for dinner a couple weeks ago. At one point, the conversation turned to my card-making. They asked to see some of what I'd done, so I brought out my inventory for them to "ooh" and "aah" over. I also showed them the framed work I had done after the craft fair. It was really fun for me to show off what I so love doing.

Then about a week ago, I got a call from a lady who knows one of those dinner guests. She'd been told of my paper crafting abilities and wanted me to frame her granddaughter's wedding invitation. We talked a bit and I agreed to do the work.

She brought over the invitation:

The wedding will be held locally at the winery up the road and the reception will be held here at Royal Highlands. In keeping with the wine theme, the bride's color is merlot. We struggled a bit to find a background paper in my stash that would come close enough to the real thing. Carol took several sheets back to her house and picked one which was pretty close to the actual dress..

I bought the frame and a few other supplies and went to work. I had a couple of ideas already laid out in my head and just had to work with them until I found just the right combination. Here's the finished piece:

I'm still letting the glue dry which is holding on the white flowers. I'll call Carol tomorrow and let her know she can pick it up. I sure hope she'll like it as much as I do. :-)

The sketch challenge from OWH Stars & Stamps this week is this:

Here is my card based on this sketch:

Here is the inside:

Again, I used the "recipe card" concept to include a full sized sheet of writing paper for the sender.

Thanks for looking.

I've been making cards for Operation Write Home for the past several days and finally got around to doing the sketch posted at their Stars & Stamps Blog.

Here's my card based on the sketch:

In addition to using the sketch, I also used the "recipe card" tutorial to make the pocket inside to hold a full sized sheet of writing paper.

I hope some soldier will enjoy sending this card.

This week's CPS sketch is this:

Here is the card I made, based on the sketch:

Here's the inside of the card:

And now for the story: I have been following the Operation Write Home organization for about a year. I sent them a bunch of Christmas cards last winter and have wanted to do more. They recently posted a tutorial on making recipe cards. With a little pocket inside, it is even easier to include a full size sheet of  writing paper folded up inside the card. So I tried making one and realized how very easy they are to make.

I started with what I call "cheater" cards, ones that use printed fronts with few embelishements. I had a number of sheets already printed, primarily E-Cuts from scrapbook.com. I went through those and came up with 7 cards in almost no time. Here are those cards plus one with a hand-made paper flower that is from Fred-She-Said. All nine of the cards are a finished size of 5.5 x 4.25.

In case you are not familiar with Operation Write Home, this is their mission:

Supporting our nation's armed forces by sending blank handmade greeting cards to write home on, as well as cards of gratitude to encourage them.

So we make the cards and send them to OWH. They collect our hand-made cards and ship them to where ever our troops are stationed. Its a wonderful cause and a great way for us card makers to give back. Check them out.

Have you ever noticed how one thing can lead to another? Here's my quick story about that.

I've been making greeting cards for some time, now. I've been selling some to friends and relatives and one or two online. I sold a respectable number at our community craft fair in the Fall, and even more at our recent Spring fair.

Once or twice along the way someone would comment about not wanting to send the card but wanting to frame it instead. That's what one lady said to me at the recent fair. She actually bought one of my cards with a specific frame in mind. Unfortunately, that card turned out to be a poor color choice for the frame she had in mind. So she brought me back the card along with the frame and asked me to make something to put into it. She also brought a second frame for the same purpose.

Here are the original card and what I made instead to put into her first frame.

The second frame was a bit more of a challenge, only because I had the "perfect" shade of blue paper to put into it, but not a large enough piece to use. After much searching, I finally found a (rather large) piece of heavy card-stock in the painting isle at Jo-Ann Fabrics. It wasn't an exact match to the original, but it was the closest thing I could find anywhere.

I had already mapped out my pattern so the working of the piece went fairly quickly. Here is the final result for her second frame.

Having been asked to actually create something specifically for a picture frame has gotten me to thinking. Why not do it ahead of time and sell frame and artwork at the next craft fair? Why not, indeed! So now I'll be on the lookout for interesting and inexpensive picture frames that might lend themselves to my style of artwork.

Look out world! Making cards has just let me to a whole new artistic outlet!