If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve already gotten a sneak peek. Monday was Memorial Day, and I committed a good 2 hours to making AnyHero Cards for Operation Write Home.
For those of you who maybe don’t know, I make cards out of the supplies I get here to review on CTD and then donate them to a wonderful organization who ships them out to the troops so that THEY can send cards home to friends and family.
Because, you know… there aren’t Hallmark stores in Kabul. Just sayin’.
But AnyHero cards are different- they are for the troops THEMSELVES- just little notes of thanks, encouragement, etc.
And I’m here to confess to you that I’ve only ever sent ONE- even though I love to make Patriotic cards. I mean, who doesn’t love red, white and blue?
I’m a bit ashamed of myself….but I have such a hard time finding the words to send to a stranger….and “Thank You” seems so trivial and shallow compared to the sacrifices and hardships they endure. So I usually have my little girl color some pages to send along instead.
But this year on Memorial Day I decided to honor our serving troops and make a dozen or so cards to send along.
I started with this sketch from Operation Write Home- #266:
I made a series of four pretty much sticking to the “recipe”- I did flip it from the right side to the left side after the first one!
And then, in typical Jenny fashion, I went off and adjusted things to my own liking.
Because the paper was inspiring me, you know? And you should always follow your inspiration!
I made you a little video sharing the supplies I used and some more of the cards….
So there you g0- now you know my dirty little secret. But hopefully sitting down to actually write them out will get easier and easier as I go along.
I’d love to hear your thought and ideas for what to write inside!
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I would suggest that you start with what you wrote in your post above…”Thank You seems so trivial and shallow compared to the sacrifices and hardships you’ve endured….” and more than likely other thoughts will follow to complete the sentence. Hope this helps. It’s wonderful what you do for the troops. How can I get involved too?
Thanks, Chris
When my son was deployed, I asked him what would be good to put in care packages. He said, more than anything the troops want to know they have the support of the folks at home. So, don’t worry so much about what you say, just let them know they are appreciated. I like OWH because it also supports the unsung heros, the spouses keeping the home fires burning.
When I visited my brother’s family earlier this year I brought a ton of Any Hero cards with me. My SIL had a great time writing in them about her granddaughter’s 2nd birthday party, as well as her daughter that’s in the Navy and what the weather was like. Last year I took a 7000 mile road trip by myself and I wrote how I was able to do that, thanks to their service, as in many countries a woman alone wouldn’t be able to do that.