Multiplicity

Are you familiar with Operation Write Home? I have a link to them on the sidebar. It's a national movement of crafters making cards. Those cards are collected, sorted and mailed out to military stations with little or no Base Exchange opportunity to purchase cards. The soldiers at those station can pick their choice of cards and have a personalized way to keep in touch with those back home.

Why hand made cards? Don't they have internet video chats, satellite phones and the like? Yes and no. Not every post has access to the things we take for granted. Like you and me, they enjoy putting words on paper. They know the value of handwritten bits of love showing up in the mail box. Cards are more tangible than that video chat. It's tactile.

I traveled to every post to which my Dad was assigned. However, the anti-American sentiment got so bad when we were in the Middle East, families were sent back to the US without their benefactor. We spent 6 long, frightening months hearing about all the attacks on Americans in that area. It was hard not to imagine something had happened to Dad. That short walk to the mailbox each day was our lifeline to him. Mom did get to talk to him about once a week on a crackly phone line with imposed time limits.

She kept every letter we received. We made it through (there were 2 scares when we awaited that military vehicle in the drive to tell us the unthinkable), but those letters... well, they are worth more than gold, even now. We didn't have the luxury of cards. It's just a little bit of love that I can bring to our servicemen and women that might help families back home keep it together until their soldier returns.

If you make cards - share the love. When you make a card, there are almost always left over bits that are the exact opposite of the card you made.

I made this card, and had a card base of green leftover from making the green panel. I also had enough yellow to make a base like the green panel, and enough printed paper to make the triptych.

It only took stamping a second butterfly and the time to adhere it all together to make 2 cards instead of 1. Give it a go - keep one, send one to OWH to make a soldier and their family's day. Or send them both!

Cheers!
~ky

Supplies: Gina K Designs Pure Luxury cardstock, Tim Coffey patterned paper, Versamark and Memento inks, Stampendous embossing powder, Scor-bug, Tim Holtz Sizzix die - Flourishes, Gina K Designs stamp set Hope for Haiti.