Supporting our Troops

I post this in honor of my Dad and all of the other service men and women who give so much to keep us all safe.

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International Picture of the Year
Here are two very touching photos honored this year.

First Place :

First Place
Todd Heisler The Rocky Mountain News





When 2nd Lt. James Cathey's body arrived at the Reno Airport , Marines climbed into the cargo hold of the plane and draped the flag over his casket as passengers watched the family gather on the tarmac.

During the arrival of another Marine's casket last year at Denver International Airport , Major Steve Beck described the scene as so powerful: 'See the people in the windows? They sat right there in the plane, watching those Marines. You gotta wonder what's going through their minds, knowing that they're on the plane that brought him home,' he said 'They will remember being on that plane for the rest of their lives. They're going to remember bringing that Marine home. And they should.'


Second Place
Todd Heisler The Rocky Mountain News

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The night before the burial of her husband's body, Katherine Cathey refused to leave the casket, asking to sleep next to his body for the last time The Marines made a bed for her, tucking in the sheets below the flag. Before she fell asleep, she opened her laptop computer and played songs that reminded her of 'Cat,' and one of the Marines asked if she wanted them to continue standing watch as she slept. 'I think it would be kind of nice if you kept doing it,' she said. 'I think that's what he would have wanted'

Blue Fridays

Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing blue every Friday. The reason, Americans who support our troops used to be called the 'silent majority' WE are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for God, country and home in record breaking numbers. We are not organized, boisterous or overbearing.

Many Americans, like you, me and all our friends, simply want to recognize that the vast majority of America supports our troops. Our idea of showing solidarity and support for our troops with dignity and respect starts this Friday -- and continues each and every Friday until the troops all come home, sending a deafening message that every red-blooded American who supports our men and women afar, will wear something blue. By word of mouth, press, TV -- let's make the United States on every Friday a sea of blue much like a homecoming football game in the bleachers. If everyone of us who loves this country will share this with acquaintances, coworkers, friends, and family, it will not be long before the USA is covered in BLUE and it will let our troops know the once 'silent' majority is on their side more than ever, certainly more than the media lets on. The first thing a soldier says when asked 'What can we do to make things better for you?' is .'We need your support and your prayers.' Let's get the word out and lead with class and dignity, by example, and wear something blue every Friday

Collecting Buttons + more...

Hi all.

Daddy Update: He is doing better now, still a few things to check out and make sure are ok before he gets a completely clean bill of health but we are very optimistic. He's out of the hospital and back home being a retired old man (hardly!). And yes, he's my daddy and always will be. Love you Daddy!!! (Can you tell I'm a spoiled non-brat?...he he)

Anywhoo,

So last week I posted a card I made for a Embellish Magazine Masculine challenge. I loved it so much I decided to do another. Once I get going........WATCH OUT NOW!! Lol. I'm on a roll.

 

 

Here's a card I made for the Totally Hues Challenge # 4

 

Everything you see on this card is handstamped. There is no patterned paper. I used to be a paper hoarder but I've moved away from it a bit (although I love love LOVE the Crate Paper Portrait Collection......it's currently in my cart though).  The more I get into the habit of creating cards, especially for challenges, I really get into stamping. Really loving stamping right now.

What I like: I'm loving the pink damask paper in the background. It's the Impression Obsession Reverse Damask Cover-A-Card stamp. It gave the most beautiful even covered stamped image. Definitely one of my favs. I stamped it in Melon Mambo ink by Stampin' Up! The Gingham paper is another IO Cover-A-Card stamp in, what else, Gingham. Super cute right??

The lady image is from the March 2011 Unity Stamp Co. monthly stamp kit club. She is so super cute. I can see getting a lot of use out of this stamp. Oh and the sentiment is from PTI - Studio Style Stamp set.

What I'm not feeling: The distressed paper behind the floral paper. Not so sure about that one. Liked it initially but not feeling it anymore.

Speaking of collecting things, I'm currently awaiting my second order from PTI this month. I ordered basics earlier last week and then ordered from the new release a few days later. As I was preparing my labels for my CD cases I realized that I've collected quite a few PTI stamp sets. I absolutely love their products because they go with my style so well, and I feel like they are so versatile. I'm not a big collector. I don't have any other collections of anything in my house but my craft studio is a whole 'nother story. Between PTI stamps, the Greeting Farm stamps, and Copic.....I've got quite a few collections going on.

What do you collect?

Well that's it for now. I need to call my Daddy and make sure he's doing ok. He has another doctor's appointment on Monday.

Sweet Stamping,

Angee Lee

Embellish Color Trends: Masculine - # 1 Dad

Last week was spring break for me. I didn't get a whole lot of crafting done, like I'd planned, because I was at the hospital all week with my dad. He had a allergic reaction to either some bad seafood he'd eaten or some medication he'd taken. It caused his throat to begin to swell. All the swelling woke him up in the middle of the night and he got up and drove himself, DROVE HIMSELF, to the VA hospital. (Crazy man. He said he didn't think he'd make it if he waited for an ambulance. The doctors said he made it to the ER just in time. Can't even imagine driving myself to the hospital while my throat is, essentially, swelling shut. Scary...)

Once he got to the emergency room they went to work right away giving him epinephrine to open his airway and stop the swelling. Well, the epinephrine reacted with another one of his medications he takes and sent it heart into tachycardia, or super fast heart rate (it was at over 120 beats per minute). So they gave him another medication to counteract the epinephrine. Needless to say 2 days later his blood test indicated that he'd has a small heart attack (probably from the Tachycardia), so they did a angiogram to make sure there wasn't any blockage in his heart.  Luckily there was no blockage in his arteries around his heart but the tachycardia did send his heart into fibrillation, which means your heart doesn't beat normally it quivers which is very dangerous. (As you can see spending 5 days at the hospital will teach you a bit of latin) To fix the fibrillation they had to perform a cardioversion (shock to the heart) to stabilize his heart rate. So he had the cardioversion and everything went back to normal. They will be monitoring his heart rate over the next month to make sure everything stays on track.

All that happened in a span of 5 days and I'm glad to say that he got out of the hospital on Friday and is doing well.

While I was awaiting the phone call that he was going to be release I happened across Sarah Martina's blog via my google reader and her entry to the latest embellish color challenge and I decided to give it a go.



Took me about 20 minutes to get this one together. And I like the result. Definitely will be doing more challenges as they are so much fun (and definitely live up to their name sake).

So hop of over to the Embellish Mag Blog to take a look at the design teams cards and submit one of your own.

 

So how did I do? I couldn't quite figure out how to get all the colors to go together so I just went with texture. All of the cardstock has some type of texture from the woodgrain pattern from the PTI Background Basics: Woodgrain stamp to the herringbone pattern on the Mat Stack 4 stamp from PTI. I also stamped the card base in IO Canvas Cover-a-Card stamp, but you can't really tell.

This challenge was so much fun and definitely a challenge. Masculine cards walk a fine line between fussy and streamlined. I hope my dad like this one. 3 Month's until Father's Day but I'm just glad that my dad is happy and healthy and at home.

Sweet scraps.

Angee Lee

March Papertrey Ink release watch.....

Loving the look of this stamp. It's urban design is very appealing to me. It's designed by Melissa Bickford.

This looks like sentiment heaven to me. Love sentiment sets.

More sentiment goodness. Love the loops.

How can you not love this stamp set? This would have been perfect for the travel mini I just made for the ASO swap.

My love of dies is very tempted by this set.

 

Hop on over to Nichole Heady's blog to stay up-to-date on all the new PTI goodness.

 

And just for a little eye candy, I made this card last night with the new Impression Obsession Cover-A-Card stamps that I just received (I absolutely love these stamps) and the button basics stamp set from PTI.

 

Picture taken with the Instagram App on my iPhone.

Card Recipe:

Cardstock: Hawaiian Shores, Stamper's Select White (PapertreyInk) Stamps: Gingham, Thin Stripes, Scratches Cover-a-Card Stamps (Impression Obsession), Button Boutique, Bitty Background Blocks (PapertreyInk) Dies: Button Card Collection (Papertreyink) Misc: Rustic Twine (Papertreyink)

Sweet Scraps.

Angee Lee

Everyday Love + Impression Obsession

Every once and again I get in a very gracious mood. I am fortunate enough to have a few really good friends in my life. They really keep me grounded and uplifted. I've known them since college. We haven't maintained constant contact since college but they are really good people and we are never apart for too long. And when we reconnect that bond that we have is instantly rekindled and we can always pick up where we left off. I'm a very self sufficient person and rarely, if ever, ask anyone for anthing, (besides advice) but these friends of mine are the type to know what I might need when I don't even know I need it.  For that I am truly grateful and in that spirit of generosity I sent out a few thank-you-for-being-my-friend cards.

Here's the first.

I put some of my new purchases to good use on this one. I used the MftStamps Notebook Edge Dienamics die to make the edge on the Simply Chartreuse cardstock from Paper Trey Ink. I also used the new Parisian Lace Die from Paper Trey Ink, along with the Labels 14 nestabilities dies. Don't you just love those letter beads? I got that idea from Sasha Holloway a few months back and they had been sitting in my stash for months. Finally broke them out for this card and another layout I did earlier this year and I think I may need to order more. I love those little beads so much. The sentiment is from a Technique Tuesday Stamps set "Everyday Words" by Ali Edwards. I just love her sentiment stamp sets.

For the background I used the Criss Cross Cover-a-Card stamp by Impression Obsession. OMG I'm so in love with these cover-a-card stamps. They are absolutely fab. They are deep etched red rubber cling mounted stamps and they measure 5.75 x 5.75 so they cover the entire front of a standard size card. They are simply amazing. And yes I have more of these on order too. (i have a problem, i know). lol.

Here's the second card:

 

For this card I used the Paper trey Ink Tag Sale # 4 die with Hawaiian shores cardstock and I used another Impression Obsession die on this card background as well. It's the woodgrain cover-a-card. They stamp so well and you only have to stamp them once to cover an entire card. Oh and the best part is they come with their own mount. It's called a mega mount and it is concaved so it sort of rocks across the card giving you a good impression all over the front of the card without missing spots. The stars are die cut with the Stacking Stars dienamics die by MFTStamps, as well. Oh and the sentiment is from a Technique Tuesday Stamps set "Everyday Words" by Ali Edwards as well.

I'm really enjoying mixing and matching companies and all the great results you get when your organized and you can easily pull lots of things together (because your scraproom is organized and everything has it's place instead of.......i digress). Well I'm off to do more homework.

BTW, both these pics are from my iphone and the Instagram app. Love this app.

 

Sweet scraps,

Angee Lee