From Our Hearts

Patriot Way Stampers Come Through AGAIN!

All the WAY FROM MAINE (didn't we say we get cards from all 4 corners of the USA?)

Marilyn Mae and the Patriotic Way Stampers were stamping their hearts out again and a few hearts even spilled out on the box before it was shipped out !

Yes, these patriotic ladies were at it again, this time stamping and creating 204 Easter cards.  YES . . . ALL Easter cards!  Marilyn Mae tells us there are a core group of 5 ladies in the Patriotic Way Stampers who are actively participating and creating these cards.

All the same design, same stamp, different colors, different designer paper and ribbons, but all basically the same card.  And all HAND colored - what a tremendous amount of work went into creating this box of flowers.  Each card is a symbol of their love of God, Country, and the Troops.

Marilyn Mae now has special T-Shirts for her group of Patriot Way Stampers!

Enclosed in the box was a note from Marilyn Mae, and some dimensionals, which we will put to good use.

To our surprise and delight, a cash donation was included in the box for postage, compliments of Diane O.  This will help us ship out those boxes of Easter cards!  Many thanks to Diane - we receive cards but without the funds for supplies and postage, they wait until they are available.

Marilyn Mae is helping to spread the word about From Our Hearts by networking - as she believes in our cause and in supporting our troops!

We thank you, Marilyn Mae, for all you are doing to help us to get as many cards in as many hands of our servicemen and women serving our country in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Much of our card donations and financial support is received because of individuals like Marilyn Mae, who spread the word of what we are doing.

Kathy W Goes Above and Beyond

When our request went out to the stamping community to purchase a retired stamp set that we needed for our February 6 card making event, Kathy heard our plea.

This is what arrived in the mail:

Not only the stamp set, which she would not let us pay for - her most generous contribution to From Our Hearts (and we will use it to make our Father's Day cards, baby, birthday . . . such a versatile set!) but a box full of cards made by her:

And one more little surprise, made by some little ones!

These cute cards, made with the Loads of Love stamp set by Stampin' Up!® were made and donated by children who made them at their school:

Just adorable!

 

We suspect Kathy had a hand in helping these children put these cards together.  What a wonderful surprise to see them included in the box!

Our many thanks to Mrs. Murphy's class, and to Kathy for her multi-faceted contribution!

10 Year Old Evan Stamps for From Our Hearts

When Ann L from Oswego, Illinois e-mailed From Our Hearts to say that ANOTHER box was on its way, she said she had a little surprise for us.  Not only did Ann send us a box full of her own handcrafted cards (the box contained 166 cards, with envelopes and customized slips, too!!!)  . . .

 

There were Birthday, Congratulations, Valentines, Mothers's Day, Holiday and

All Occasion cards . . .

. . . all neatly listed out for us on a spreadsheet. . .

 

But our surprise was 25 St. Patrick's Day cards made by Evan, her 10 year old son!

 

Evan chose From Our Hearts as a community service project to earn his 100 Year Award for Cub Scouts.

Here is just one of the 25 cards Evan carefully made and his mom made him his own OWN customized slip to include with each card!

Ann sent us pictures of Evan making the cards:

 

Evan sure looks like he was having fun!

 

And here was the final result - 25 QUALITY cards:

Great job, Evan!  And congratulations to you on earning your award.  We thank you for choosing From Our Hearts as YOUR community service project!

The Patriot Way Stampers Have Fun and Find Time to Stamp, Too

Introducing the one and only Patriot Way Stampers . . . 1421 miles from our home office in Jefferson City, these ladies hail from the fine town of Buxton, Maine.

 

This fine group of women do everything together, including finding time from their busy days to stamp!

And take a good look at their box of cards - lots and lots of valentines!  They were ready for the boxes, and they even added their contact information to the back of our slip, each one inserted in the back of each card.  300 cards in total.

300 cards?  Come to think of it, Patriot Stampers, you have filled one entire box to send over to our chaplains!  Our heartfelt thanks to all of you for your time and talent . . . and our troops are going to love these cards (and so will their loved ones back here in the states!)

Ladies of the Lodge

Sometimes we receive boxes that make us just stop and pause.  These boxes did just that.  Not delivered by Stephen, these arrived Fed Ex and were found by our front doorstep when we arrived home from work:

 

Box #1 of 2:  Big RED Heart that says Cards for Our Troops Made with Love by LOL - Ladies of the Lodge.  Notice all the red heart stickers adorning the front of the box?

 

Box #2 was a photocopy of the heart on box #1, and more red heart stickers.

 

On the sides of the boxes, more red hearts, and patriotic stickers - United we Stand, Stars & Stripes forever....

 

I love USA . . .

 

and many more on the backs of the boxes . . . God Bless America . . .we didn't want to open them until they were thoroughly photographed!  Then when we opened them . . .

 

Out slid shirt boxes with packages of bundled cards, each sorted, each counted . . . a note to us and a picture of the Ladies of the Lodge -

On the very top of the note (which, by the way, is printed on HEART stationary!) says "FROM OUR HEARTS TO YOURS!  The ladies say:

"We are "newbee's" to your Cards for the Troops project, we are a groups of gals from the suburbs of detroit (Macomb County) who scrap together, make cards together, golf together, just have fun together!  When we heard about your thoughful idea and organization, of course we wanted to participate.  We have included 337 cards, separated into a variety of catagories.  All cards include mailing envelopes and are in clear envelopes to help keep them clean.  Our group had a lot of fun making the cards and we hope to be able to send you more soon.  We enjoy seeing your emails & photos of all the boxes of cards people send to you.  Your Mail carrier, Stephen, really gets a work out!  Keep up the good work and we'll be in touch again in the new year.  God Bless you and all your volunteers."

 
Take a look at these bundles of cards!  We are not yet finished going through all of them, but they are just well made - and some are just too cute!

Our thanks to:

Nancy L

Sharon R

Diane O

Michele V

Delee B

Beverly S

Marie C

Sherriee D

and

Amber D

. . . the Ladies of the Lodge of Armada, MI - we look forward to your next box of cards - these certainly put a smile on our faces!

From Our Hearts Meets Up with Kavi C

And what a pleasant visit we had - albeit too short - as we were traveling through Virginia to North Carolina and made a quick stop in Hillsville . . . and finally met Kavi who has been donating cards to our effort since the day we began, almost 2 years ago.

Kavi is on the left, Jane (her upline who came out to meet us) is on the right, and Martie in the middle.  Kavi handed Martie a "From Our Hearts" bag, handmade by her daughter (thank you!), full of 122 cards donated to our effort, a beautiful Thanksgiving card to Martie and Tom (thank you Kavi!), 2 bottles of glitter glue to test out at our December event, a nice handcrafted pen and notepad, perfect for keeping track of the many, many messages and things to do for From Our Hearts AND (DRUM ROLL ...........) 100 cards, prepped for our FOH event in December!

Yes, Kavi is our newest official volunteer at From Our Hearts - our designer - she is donating her designing talent and time to create and prep cards for our events in Jefferson City.  We pulled out our calendar of events and shared the dates of our upcoming events - and we have many on our calendar.  We will be keeping her very busy.  And what a tremendous help this will be for us.

Tom didn't make it into any of the pictures as he was behind the lens.  It was hard to say goodbye but we had to be on our way to reach our final destination in North Carolina.  We thought it was appropriate to take a picture in front of the American flag:

After all, it is because of our servicemen and women who are protecting this flag and our freedom that we met and have become friends.

Kavi, you are the best!  And Jane, we appreciate your help in creating all those cards 122 cards that were donated.

On our next trip to North Carolina - we will plan a little more time to visit!

Kavi

First, a card arrives from a soldier stationed in Afghanistan.  A very nice note from Amy.  She says:

"Greetings from Afghanistan!  I just wanted to thank all of your at From Our Hearts, let you know that your efforts are appreciated.   I still write letters and am grateful for the beautiful free stationary."

She goes on to say that she works 12 hour days and gets one day off, has been deployed since December and is grateful for the mostly quiet deployment, with the exception of the occasional rocket attack and only once did they hit the compound where she lives and works.  And she closes her letter with "life is good".

Wow.  Imagine, 12 hour days, 6 days a week, with rocket attacks and life is good?

Back to why we are relating this to you.  The "stationary" that she chose - a beautiful card made with Baroque Motifs stamp set and using the eyelet edge punch (very feminine) was created by . . . Kavi!

Yes, she had signed the back of her card!

Next one:

We received another card just a day later.  This one comes from a male soldier, rank unknown but stationed in Iraq.  His was a rather lengthy letter.  He says:

"A co-worker mentioned he was going by the Chapel to get some cards to send.  I followed along to see what he was talking about.  I was very thankful to see the array of free cards.  I have used several to write to my wife.  One of the cards was signed with a name and Hillsville, VA.  I know the cards come from all over (I checked out your web page).  I enjoyed knowing that one of the cards sent to my wife, we live in VA, came from VA.  Thank you."

This is Kavi!  She had an event for From Our Hearts and the ladies creating the cards signed them on the back and wrote "Hillsville, VA" below their name.

Then comes Kavi's box of Holiday cards.   

 

Inside, a note and an envelope addressed to our mail carrier, "Stephen".

 

Hand delivered the next day, Stephen opened it up and she so thoughtfully wrote a thank you to him for taking such good care of our boxes of cards!  He was very touched!  It was a Kodak moment, for sure, only no camera was on hand to capture it!

Kavi sent cards, bases & clear envelopes.  Having her phone number, we talked about the "Kavi" week that we had here at From Our Hearts.

There is more . . .

Kavi is now designing cards, cutting and prepping everything to make cards for our free From Our Hearts events we hold monthly here in Jefferson City!  She explained it to me this way:

"All of you are so busy in Jefferson City with all you do getting the cards over to the troops.  I can either continue to make the cards and send them to you, or I can HELP YOU, donate my time, creativity, card stock, and send bundles of pre-prepared cards that you can take to your events.  This way, YOU won't have to worry about doing any of the prep work!  And I can design these cards with my retired stamp sets and send them along.  I'll design 4 or 5 cards using the same set."

Stunned?  Yes!  A prayer answered!  You see, all the board members at From Our Hearts hold down full time jobs.  So there goes 40 hours out of our week that we cannot devote to what is in our hearts.

So yes, Kavi, we accept your offer of help.  And so thankful are we!  And we just found out she will CONTINUE TO SEND US CARDS, TOO!

We would ask if there are any others who are willing to do the same?

Wendy H Thinks Out of the Box for From Our Hearts

When Wendy H from Blanchardville, WI contacted us, she had an idea:  Can she turn extra place cards into cards and would we be interested in receiving them?

She sent us a picture of what one would look like as a finished card.

And . . .

Take a look at these patriotic cards she turned out:

 

Just perfect for sending to our servicemen and women serving overseas for them to write home!

Thinking out of the box, off the tables and on to a piece of folded card stock (with a little bit of ribbon, brads and her creativity) - what masterpieces!

Wendy, your cards are heading over next month . . .  these will be taken out of the boxes first, don't you think?

Jefferson City Rubber Stampers Support From Our Hearts in Many Ways

We cannot and do not forget those individual card makers who help us locally, here in Jefferson City - those who show up at our monthly library events, those who volunteer their time, those who solicit help with providing supplies and those who drop off cards on our doorstep . . .

Linda W left this shopping bag of cards - it took us a while to finally get this coordinated, and we thank Linda for her patience as she worked around our busy schedule.  They are safely tucked away in clear envelopes and in boxes, ready to ship overseas.

And Sue S - she helped to design cards on the "fly" this past month at the library (they turned out beautifully!), and took donated cards pieces home and worked on them, turning them into cards to send over - her efforts and TALENT are very much appreciated!

Stefanie N., your continued support of drumming up local support and providing envelopes to our cause, well, we thank you so very much.

Debbie L designed and donated 200 cards for the public to make at our free monthly library event.

Jefferson City stampers, you are the best!  From Our Hearts thanks you so very much for helping and supporting our cause!

Never Heard of Ava, NY? From Our Hearts Has!

And here are some of the fine folks from upstate New York who turned out at Sandee R's Cards for the Troops Event to make hand stamped cards to donate to From Our Hearts:

 

Sandee, an Independent Stampin' Up!® demonstrator, is in the back (picture below), in the green sweater, helping to create the cards that she designed for the event.  She and her group of stampers worked for several hours to fill up a box of cards to send our way.

We just love the heart on the return address!

 

Inside, an assortment of carefully, detailed and beautiful cards, all made with such care.  In total, 227 cards were created - one full box sent to From Our Hearts for our troops, and we know that the recipient of these cards are going to be very, very happy.

Sandee, we thank you and all of your card makers in Ava, NY for all the hard work that you put into making this even happen all the hard work that went into making this box of cards appear on our doorstep!