Working on the last cards I will be sending to Operation Write Home - as Sandy is shutting down operations on August 1st.  It will be difficult to know I'm no longer supporting our troops, but the fact that the troops are coming come is why OWH is shutting down is not a bad thing!!

I decided to start taking pictures now - so below are some of the cards that will be shipped mid next month.  As usual they are on StampinUp cardbase, and I've used a lot of StampinUp papers this time, but a few are from discount packs from big box discount stores.  I've also been working with multi-part stamp sets, Lotus from StampinUp, and roses from KitchenSink stamps. And of course there are die-cuts done on my Cuttlebug or Gazelle, and mulberry flowers from a vendor in China.  Inks are either StampinUp or Tsukineko. 

And here's the rest of the cards in the shipment that went out today.  All told the this past shipment was 37 cards - No Place like Home and Father's Day primarily.  They are all on StampinUp base, and mostly stamped on Recollections shimmer paper with Memento inks. And a large portion of the papers used for the Houses, Trees, Bushes and Butterflies were those "A Pound of Paper" collections purchased at one of the chain craft stores. All the houses were cut with PoppyStamp/Memory Box dies, and the trees and bushes were cut with Sizzix dies.  The butterflies are from various manufacturers. 

I am drawn to the "There's No Place Like Home" stamp for Operation Write Home cards, and find myself using it a lot.	So this shipment had a total of 16 cards with that stamp.  Having spent time overseas, i believe the message is appropriate for our military...
The Country Houses diecuts are in different colors....	...and the Butterflies are also a mix of various color combinations.
The easel stamp is from VivaLasVegaStamps.  Background papers from StampinUp.
These are the oddball cards in the group.  I only had one bench die cut - it was a freebie from an online vendor. The Window diecut on the Birthday card is from Spellbinder and the rose stamp behind the window panes are from ArtKure.

Now i'm going to start setting up "kits" for me to work on while sitting in a hotel room for 10 days in May - well...the time in the room after work for the 10 days i'll be out of town in May.  Whether i sit and color in Pre-stamped focal pieces, or piece together precut, prestamped, precolored...i'm going to have to figure out how to keep busy...

Father's Day is coming, and the Operation Write Home deadline is the end of this month - so I focused on that - in between of long hours and trips out of town.

All cards are done on StampinUp Card Base, and the stamped images and sentiments on StampinUp Very Vanilla, and Memento Cocoa ink, unless otherwise identified. 

Browns are such an easy color for Father's Day - add some gold stickers and  heartfelt sentiments and I think it works.    Papers are from some leftovers i don't remember who from.	Teals too work for Masculine cards.  Papers again from leftovers, but i love these little "stamp" stamps - I think from StampinUp.  Hand colored.
Happy Father's Day again, in Ships.  This was a 2-fer and a 4-fer, all done with the same 'chain craft store bag of discount papers' backgrounds.	The background ships are StampinUp i believe, and the Tall Ships are done with a FlonzCraft stamp - and again - all hand colored.
Again my fascination with window cards - and the sentiments on the Window Shutters ...	Opening to reveal a great Northwoods stamp!  I did a 3-fer on this one!
Here's the other 2 window cards fronts.  Northwoods are some of my favorite stamps - but the only way i can think of to use the larger ones is to put the sentiment on the outside.	And here's 2 more versions.... I think ima stick with darker ink if i do any more of these.  I'm not particularly fond of the one stamped in the green.
Here's that 'stamp' stamp again - For A Special Father.	...and a few more Father's day cards, unremembered papers, gold stickers...
The group I'm finishing are all similar to these - all with the "There's no place like home" stamped with Memento, the Country House die cut by Memory Box, with the windows and doors that open (squeee!), and various trees and butterfly die cuts. These will all be shipping here shortly - to make the Father's Day deadline at Operation Write Home!