Muchas Gracias

I love making thank you cards and I got to make a ton of them recently. Not all got photographed and not all that got photographed got handed out but here are a few I make during the frenzy. They were made for the people in my church group as a thank you for letting me use their names and addresses to get into the Ladies Night Out event on November 9th for the American Cancer Society. Hope you like them.

K

Stamping for Soldiers and Eating for WINGS

For Immediate Release

Media contact: Katie Bolinger 224-456-3050

Stamping for Soldiers and Eating for WINGS

HOFFMAN ESTATES -- Three area Stampin' Up!
demonstrators -- Katie Bolinger of Hoffman Estates,
Chiemi Kusonuki of Elk Grove Village, and June
Susmarski of Elgin -- are offering area residents a
chance to make cards for soldiers serving overseas
while raising money for another charity, too.

Stamping for Soldiers and Eating for WINGS (Women In
Need Growing Stronger) will be held from 3 - 8 p.m.
October 6 in the party room of the Hoffman Estates
Buona Beef, 2352 W. Higgins Road (Higgins Road near
Barrington Road).

Visit the party room first and get a flyer. Present
the flyer when ordering your Buona Beef meal that day
and a percentage of your meal purchase will be donated
to the WINGS program, which provides services for
homeless and/or abused women and children in the
Chicagoland area. Direct donations to the WINGS
program can also be made in the party room.

Those attending can make up to three cards — a thank
you card to soldiers, a Christmas card for overseas
soldiers to send home, and a card to make and take for
themselves. There is a nominal fee for the make and
take cards to cover supply costs. This event is in
conjunction with World Card Making Day.

World Card Making Day is a day to celebrate the
creativity of handmade cards and the personal
connection that they create between friends and family
while Kicking off the holiday card-making season. To
learn more about this international day of creativity
visit http://www.worldcardmakingday.com/. Stampin' Up!
Is a silver sponsor of World Card Making Day.

For more information, contact Katie Bolinger at
224-456-3050 or visit
http://www.katiebolinger.stampinup.net

###

You can't win if you don't play

There were no entries so there were no winners in my blog candy contest. I guess I was just not destined to have WANTED. : (

My sister's 40th birthday book is now her Christmas present instead. I have 2 big events coming up and no time to do personal stuff. So I guess I can keep the Grace challenge open.

The first in the Stamping for Soldiers and Eating for WINGS event above. I have a goal of 500 cards for but I have planned for 600 - that's a lot of paper to cut and it won't be here until Friday (my sister's birthday).

The second is the Ladies Night Out for the Cure event in Hoffman Estates on November 9th for the American Cancer Society. I have a lot of cash and carry crafts to make, a display to develop, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Christmas Begins - Slowly

I am so busy getting things together for this weekend's workshop and World Card Making Day -- so much excitement there, will have ALL the wonderful details soon -- that my new Holy Tryptich stamps have not gotten a lot of use. I only have one card photographed and here it is.

I like the angels in gold. I stamped the reverse angle onto a scrap of rubber with Versamark and then on to the Night of Navy, stamped her again with Versamark straight to the cardstock and them brushed on a bit of PearlEx. The Holy Family is done with colored pencils and Gamsol (love that stuff) and their border is stamped in Soft Sky. The tag is from the star studded set on soft sky.

So what do you think? Can I do anything to improve future cards like this because I'm going to be cranking our the Christmas cards soon.

Ta
K

Let the Thanks begin

I am on my way to 60 names and addresses for the Nov. 9th event and all the members of my church group who have allowed me to use their information are going to get a thank you at our first meeting of the year which is at the end of the month. These are the 2 flatest cards (read, could be put on a scanner while I hunt for batteries for the camera).

I like them but they need something. They just don't SING. I like cards that SING. Any suggestions?

Happy Stamper = Productive Stamper

I have the best news! For World Card Making Day I will be Stamping for Soldiers at Buona Beef in Hoffman Estates. It's our favorite restaurant because they have the BEST 4-cheese pizza in our area and it doesn't break the bank.

Anywho, I will be working with a couple other demonstrators to help people make Thank You cards for soldiers and/or Christmas cards that soldiers can send to their families back home. I was asked by the restaurant manager if I wanted to make it a benefit night. He explained that Buona Beef will donate a portion of the nights food sales to our charity. Well I accepted that offer and told him I would like the money to go to the WINGS progam . We are going to be helping 2 groups with one event. I LOVE THAT!

I was so excited that I made 8 thank you cards to send to those who have let me use their name and address for the November 9th Ladies Night Out. They are all different and all beautiful (according to a lady I work with). Of course the batteries are dead on the camera so I can't take the pictures but I will soon.

Does anyone have experience with the Kodak Easy Share cameras? I'm thinking of upgrading.

More Candy

Want even more see Leslie's blog Continuing to Create.

Blog Candy 3-fer

I've decided to go with sitemeter as my blog counter because I know I don't really have 1348 hits. How do I know? Each time I would go to it while I was previewing different layouts the count would go up by one. So now we will see how many people really know I'm here.


To entice more people to visit my humble little blog I thought I'd try my hand at the whole "blog candy" thing. These are for the Boho girls and anyone else interested in a bit of Western embellishment. I have 3 little packages (I love making packaging) of silver buckles and a yard of Navaho ribbon to give away. But wait don't you have to work to get these things -- yes, yes you do.

I will pick the winners Friday, September 21 that gives you 2 weeks to do 1 of 3 things. For each category you enter you will get one change at the prize. Enter in each category get 3 chances. I will select one prize per category.

1. 60 Names and Address
I need to get 60 names 60 names and address of people in the Western Suburbs of Chicago (Schaumburg/Hoffman Estates area) by September 21st to participate in The 2007 Ladies' Night Out for the Cure, which will be held on Friday, November 9th from 6pm to 9:00 pm. The location is at the Blackhawk Community Center located at Higgins and Huntington on the South side of Higgins Road in Hoffman Estates, IL. Proceeds will benefit the American Cancer Society.

I would love to have you be a part of this wonderful charity event, but each consultant must provide the organizer with a minimum of 60 envelopes stamped and addressed to our customers. Here's where the problem begins -- I don't know 60 people in this area, let alone have 60 customers.

How can you help and be entered in the blog candy drawing? Email me your name and address for this event. Your information will not be shared with any other vendors and it will not be added to my Stampin' Up! mailing
list unless you ask me to add it. You do not need to attend the event -- though it looks like it would be fun. ALL YOU
NEED TO DO IS RECEIVE A PIECE OF MAIL.

Send your information to KatemadeDesigns@sbcglobal.net. Please use Blog Candy Contest as the subject line so I know it is not junk mail and accidentally delete it. If you send an email after Sept 21st with this as the subject line it will be deleted. In the body of the email please include your name and address, whether you are a demonstrator or not and if you would like to be added to my email newsletter list.

2. Grace's birthday contest
I have posted on this subject before but time is running out. I have a few pages done but I would love to get more information for my sister's 40th birthday book, see
Help! A birthday request for complete details. If you do send a package please post or email so I know it's coming. The offer of a RAK card still stands for anyone who snail mail's ANYTHING with the word "Grace" prominently displayed.


This is one of the pages of Grace's Book and a bit of detail so you can see the kinds of things I put in these books.




3. Wanted Set Wanted
Now on to making it easier to win. Sell me on this set! Comment on this post and tell me why I need it. I do not own or ride a horse, nor do I know any one else who is an aspiring cowboy. So whom do I send these cards to?
How many punches can I use on this set? I've been putting my punch template to the page and I come up with a few more than the lists I've seen say. Someone PLEASE make a card using the 5 point star stamp inside the 5 petal portion of the Spring Flowers Bouquet punch I really want to see how that looks.

All winners will be randomly selected from entries.