PCW Thankful Hearts Blog Hop!

*** If you're looking for the Scraptastic Designs Blog Hop, please click HERE or scroll to the post below this one! ***

Welcome to Paper Crafting World's Thankful Hearts Blog Hop! If you arrived here from Mindy's blog, you are on the right track! If you just stopped by to visit, hop on over to Cooking With Cricut to start at the beginning! You won't want to miss a single one of my sweet Design Team sisters' projects! :o)

Our Thankful Hearts Blog Hop is centered around this beautiful harvest time, with an overture of Thankfulness: an attitude of gratitude. What came to my mind upon reflection of this theme is our incredible military and their families. Their sacrifices, consequences unknown, is something to remain mindful of... as painful as it can be. They battle overseas, then often return home to raging wars in the battlefield of their mind. I am so thankful for their presence, their commitment, their love for a greater purpose. With that in mind, I created an Any Hero card for a military member, delivered by the fantastic organization Operation Write Home.

Despite the announced homecoming of some of our soldiers from deployment, there are still soldiers stationed in so many areas around the world. Fighting and battling, every single day. One thing Operation Write Home does is include Any Hero cards in their shipments, which are given to a soldier who receives little or no mail from back home. Can you imagine his or her weary eyes lighting up upon receiving even the simplest card from someone who genuinely cares? That unknown face was my inspiration for this project. I wanted to deliver a reminder to let their light shine all over the world, in the midst of their war zone. One tiny spark of light defeats the darkness. I want them to know that during this time of Thanksgiving (and beyond), they are in my heart and prayers.

The multiple nested layers of Spellbinders? Those are the layers of love I packed into this simple card. All that love has made the candlelight form a golden, harvesty heart. I used Liquid Pearls for wax and carved out the patriotic eagle from a sheet of patterned paper. After saying a prayer for the unknown recipient, I thought again about how truly thankful I am for our military. I wish I could somehow pack a real hug into the envelope. Wouldn't that be fabulous?

Perfectly in theme with this event, there is a freebie at every blog along the hop, courtesy of the ever-generous Melin! How lovely is that? Seven fantastic presents for visiting us this weekend! Ready to see the free file for visiting me on this hop? :o)

Isn't he precious?! I love this sweetheart bear and am eager to color and create with him. :o) The button code is valid until the end of the weekend, so if you're visiting after Sunday night you'll want to use this direct link for access: Bear in Sweater Digital Stamp.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, the shopping cart is temporarily down due to unexpected maintenance. We are so sorry for the inconvenience! Please come back tomorrow to grab all of the wonderful freebies. :o)

Your next stop is the fantastic Christel, who has a masterpiece waiting for you! Thank you for playing along with us today! Have a blessed and beautiful rest of the weekend. :o)

PCW Terrific Tuesday Challenge: Harvest Time!

Happy Tuesday once again, my sweet friends! I hope your November is off to a beautiful start. :o)

It's my first Terrific Tuesday Challenge as a Paper Crafting World designer! I am honored. The theme this week is Harvest Time, with the option of creating any type of project. For even further inspiration, Melin has provided three optional sketches if you so choose to use them. :o)

The creative process can be interesting. I will be honest and say this began in a frazzled panic. This is one of my favorite themes, yet I was drawing blanks and everything felt wrong and forced. I tried to simplify (don't laugh... I AM trying to explore that side of me!), which ended up making things harder. I stepped back, cast aside what I was doing, and started fresh. I thought about what harvest means to me and from there, I finally had a card path that was clearer than mud. Victory!

"Harvest Blessings"

When I think of harvest, the most poignant meaning is a harvest of spiritual blessings. What stands out is not the blessing of fruits, vegetables, and grains... but rather sowing seeds of love, faith, hope, and joy to reap a harvest of blessings for others and for myself. To spend time planting tiny seeds whenever possible, whether the recipient realizes it or not... being a blessing above all else to be a representation of heaven. Every moment is an opportunity to sow the most important seeds of all... and in due time, all will be gathering a harvest of blessings. :o) Truly glorious.

My attempt to craftily capture this is focused upon this wonderful PCW birdcage and flowers digital stamp that I colored with Copics and trimmed in gold sparkles. Given the season, when I saw this I immediately thought pumpkin... so I colored it shades of orange and filled it with the heart-shaped seeds of love, faith, hope, and joy. I coated the seeds with Stardust to make them sparkle with the Lord's radiance. Extra love abounds when on this beautiful path, evidenced by the pretty plaid hearts that are ready to burst forth from the cage. The tiny seeds, properly nourished, have blossomed to overflowing, portrayed by the cascading flowers. I colored a few of them with Copics and also added a couple of Primas. Naturally all are anchored with a sparkle. The focal element is surrounded in a circle of sparkles because love is sparkly, after all. I used rhinestones of deep amber and a golden orange, then used one of my yellow Copics to color a few clear stones to get a third harvesty color in the mix. (Which was oddly entertaining.)

My card needed a sunflower, but without any on my carts I had to improvise. I layered two sizes of Prima daisies, cut out a circle of brown felt for the fuzzy center, and dotted it with gold Stickles. I used my favorite Martha Stewart border punch and some gorgeous Prairie Bird Boutique crinkle ribbon, so I was having all sorts of fun once I relaxed about the whole project. I love how embossing looks on chocolate browns, so that was actually the first thing I did to set the stage for a happy harvest of blessings. :o)

Be sure to skip on over to the PCW challenge post to check out the fabulous creations by the rest of the Design Team! I hope you'll link up with us this week, too! I'd love to see what you create for this beautiful harvest time. :o) Thank you for dancing on by to see me! Have a sparkly day. :o)

Key Recipe Components:
 * Cricut cartridges: Elegant Edges
 * Cuttlebug embossing folder: Victoria
 * Paper: Bo Bunny, stash
 * Spellbinders Nestabilities: Labels Four
 * Stamp: Paper Crafting World~ Birdcage and Flowers
 * Copics: YR01, YR12 ('pumpkin' birdcage); YG11, YG13, YG17 (vines); Y13, Y15, V, 12, V15, V17 (flowers)
 * Ribbon: Prairie Bird Boutique
 * Flowers: Prima
 * Border Punch: Martha Stewart Doily Lace
 * Miscellaneous: Brenda Walton rhinestones, Stickles