THANK YOU Veterans & ALL Military!

         I know today is not Memorial Day but being from a military family myself, loosing a family member who was killed in Iraq and having many military friends, I just wanted to spread the word on how important it is that we honor our Veterans and Military everyday not just on Memorial Day. I've seen first hand how Vietnam, Operation Iraqi Freedom and the daily military life can be and there are no words to describe what this is like for the those who have served, those currently serving, and even for their families.This Memorial Weekend and each day forward, please take the time to thank each and every member of the military you cross paths with. It's just a few seconds of your time to shake their hand and say thank you. After all they have given way more than a few seconds of their time for us.... They have given a life long sacrifice! 
         I want to send a HUGE THANK YOU FILLED WITH LOVE AND GRATITUDE TO ALL THE SERVICE MEN AND WOMEN!!!! My family and I will never forget all you have done, currently do, and will continue to do for us!!! THANK YOU!!!
        While I am posting today about our military, I know a lot of my fellow crafters have been busy making cards for Operation Write Home this past week and I wanted to say thank you for participating in an awesome cause. I am still working on mine so sorry it's not ready to show, but in the mean time before I wrap up this post, I might as well share with you a couple other cards I have made earlier this week :) I wish you all a safe and blessed Memorial Day!

        This is a card I made for a close friend of mine who is expecting a baby. For several reasons this is seriously a huge event that we have been flipping out over, more than the usual expectant pregnancies would have. So I decided to make an "Oh Baby I'm Flippin' Out!" card. Do you see my concept ;) I paired up Stephanie Barnard's The Stamps of Life flipflops2stamp/sandals4summer, sandal dies, and sampler2love along with some baby themed stamps I purchased from the Oriental Trading Company. (Just a heads up that while I loved the images, I was not that impressed with the stamp set from Oriental Trade Company as it did not stamp well and took me many tries just to get a fairly clean image). The banner die is from My Favorite Things Die-Namics Banner Greetings. For the base of the card I wanted to make my own flip style card using my own dies so I used a tutorial from brandyscards.com (if you would like to see the tutorial simply go to brandyscards.com and type in the word flip card in the search box). Then I used 2 embossing folders from Sizzix - an alphabet and a dot pattern, Spectrum Noir markers to color in the bottle, duck, pacifier, and onesie. Stamp inks came from Stampin' Up, rhinestones Studio G, and the paper is out of the Simply Delightful scrapbooking pad from My Mind's Eye. I as well made a matching envelope.

Front of the card

Inside of the card

Card and Matching Envelope

It was my mothers birthday and I had yet to try out this stamp and die set from The Stamps of Life by Stephanie Barnard. It's the pb&j2enjoy stampset and pb&j dies. So being that my mom is a wonderful cook, baker and dessert baker, I thought peanut butter and jelly was perfect for her. I also wanted to add balloons so I grabbed my favorite balloon die set from My Creative Time called the Stitched Party Dies. I love these dies because they have the stitched edging and the long squiggly balloon. I used a happy birthday embossing folder from Cricut to emboss the back front panel. The paper was from the scrapbook pad Simply Delightful from My Mind's Eye which matched the card stock from Stampin' Up perfectly. I used colors Crisp Cantalope, Raspberry Ripple, Baked Brown Sugar and Coastal Cabana along with standard black cardstock. The ink I used was Tuxedo Black Momento Ink. Then I used simple embossing thread for the balloon strings and a little holographic butterfly sticker from the dollar store. This was a simple, quick, and easy card that my mom loved!

Front of the card

Inside of the card