Cards for Church: Fellowship

If you are here only for the OLW card, scroll to the bottom.

Part 5 of a series on Church Card Ministries:

So...you have decided to start a church card ministry, you have planned and prepared and your card designers have put together card kits.  Now it is time to have fun! 

Our cardmakers range from a 6th graders all the way up to ???  Some attend our church, some are mothers or friends or friends of daughters of members!  We even have some that come that have no apparent connection except for a love of cardmaking.

The fellowship is phenomenal.  We share our recent crafting purchases and discuss our favorite brands/stores/websites.  We bring cards that we have made in other classes and discuss techniques.  We catch up on each others' lives.  We might even participate in a little gossip!

The following photos are from our December gathering, which is not our best attended session - people are so very busy.  But there are enough of us that want one last "escape" before Christmas that we meet anyway.

The table of card kits.

The first arrival selecting the card kits that
she wants to make.

Here are a few photos of the participants that didn't mind their photos appearing on my blog!!

And the final result is a table full of cards!

This is just a small portion of the cards we made this month.

As your ministry gets going, you can find so many other opportunities to gather.  The following is a picture from an amazing event that we held last May.  We gathered to make cards for soldiers' use - blank cards that they could use to send back home (it's not like they have a Hallmark on the corner!).  We made 1,000 cards!!

Church card ministries are the ultimate ministry!  We had so much fun as we created our cards.  And now they are in our card "sales" racks.  I can't wait to see people gathered around the cards tomorrow morning between services.  I will remember the excitement of creating those cards and now others will be excited to buy them - and they will definitely bring a smile to the recipient!  All of this, and the church raised a little money!

Please feel free to contact me or comment if you have any questions.  We are so thrilled with what we do, we would love to get others started. (In fact, one of the ladies in the first pictures was visiting from a church 90 miles away as they are thinking about starting a card ministry!)

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This series of Church Card Ministry posts is dedicated to my mom, the founder of our card ministry.  I was so blessed to be able to share this amazing experience with my mother.  We all miss you and remember you every time we gather.

Shirley Heier
1939 - 2006

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Set 269 - Embrace Life

This week's One Layer Wednesday challenge was simply "Back to the Beginning".  What technique or product got me hooked on cardmaking?  I thought and thought - but I suddenly realized that I was trying to come up with a technique or product to make a card for this challenge - not the one that got me hooked.  Because the simple truth was that it was the stamps that hooked me.  I don't have an artistic bone in my fingertips. I can't draw a stick figure.  Even trying my hardest, I don't have handwriting that can create a beautiful sentiment - it's not even legible.  I had no way to create art.  Rubber stamps did that for me.  Even I can create miniature works of art!!

The leaves are actually inked in a darker green, then coated with Shimmer Paint.

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Embrace Life, Verses Rubber Stamp sentiment
• Inks: PaperTrey Ripe Avocado and Dark Chocolate
• Paper: Neenah Classic Crest Natural White
• Accessories: PaperTrey Dark Chocolate satin ribbon, Tsukineko Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint, Mark Richards small pearls