Group Effort Thank Yous

Hi, Friends.....

I am here today to share with you a big batch of thank you cards I made this week.  As many of you know, our community was hit very hard with the wildfires that have ravaged many places in the West this summer.  Our courageous firefighters worked hard to battle the blazes and were successful in saving many, many homes that would have been destroyed.  During this ordeal and in the aftermath, we had a tremendous outpouring of donations by individuals and groups in our area.  

Tuesday of this week our church had a thank you note writing "party" to express our appreciation to each of these who helped so much......some with their time and labor, some with money, some with equipment, some with food, etc.  Around 10 ladies gathered for a couple of hours and wrote thank yous non-stop.  I and others brought thank you note cards with us for everyone to use, some were handmade and some were commercially made. We had quite a stack of them to mail out when we were done!!!  

As I was considering what design to use for these thank yous, I found an email blog update in my inbox from Melissa of A Creative Journey with Melissa.  The title of her blog post said something about making 5 cards in 15 minutes.  That immediately caught my eye!!!  :)  I loved her simple, but attractive design:

Melissa's samples using her wonderful sign language stamps!!!

 I pulled out a bunch of DCWV autumn-looking prints from my scrap bags and went to work following her fabulous tutorial....and doing a few tweaks of my own.  :)  I also used my A Creative Journey with Melissa - Fall and Winter Holiday Sentiments stamp set which Melissa designed.  I LOVE this set full of gracious and useful sentiments.  The "So Grateful" one I stamped with Versafine Ink in Vintage Sepia isn't limited only to Thanksgiving cards! 

I mounted each of them on premade kraft or white card bases.  Here is a shot of the whole group of 30 cards that I took to the party.

I can't say that I made mine as fast as Melissa was able to make hers, but I absolutely LOVE how they turned out.  Hope this has inspired you if you need to make multiple cards.  Be sure to visit Melissa's blog and see the other wonderful ideas and products she offers!!  

Thanks for coming to visit!!!  Have a lovely remaining part of the week.

<3
Janis

Thank you for the honor of entering this set of cards in the following challenges:
1. DL.Art Thankful Thursday Challenge #163 - Thank You
2. Simon Says Stamp Work-It Wednesday August 2015 - Autumn Theme
3. Word Art Wednesday Challenge #199 - Anything Goes Family Friendly
4. Pixie's Snippets Playground Week #192 - Use Snippets
5. Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper September 2014 Challenge
6. DL.Art September Challenge Linky Party  
7. Connie Can Crop Monthly Color Challenge #38

 
ETA:  
8. The Paper Girls Challenge - Grateful/Thankful (This challenge allows projects that are slightly older than their blog post.  Their "Grateful" challenge was so perfect for my cards that I hope they will accept it.)