Only by accident did I realize that 2024 is a much bigger anniversary to my card making than my 15 years with Stampin’ Up! as an Independent Demonstrator. This year marks 40 years since I learned the art of rubber stamping and card making. I’ve been making cards and mailing them for 40 YEARS!
Let me tell you how I got started.
Ann Holmes was an angel who attended my church, always alone, and socialized with everyone every Sunday. She caught up on how everyone was doing, who was missing that Sunday, and knew who was looking for a job, having to move, graduating college, struggling, or celebrating. She recognized everyone’s need for happy mail, and sent index cards decorated with Charlie Brown stickers, and wrote lovely notes of encouragement. (I don’t know how she got the cost of postage stamps past her ogre, err, I mean, husband.) I was a fortunate recipient of her “cards in the mail” one day, and I still have it. This serves as proof that whatever you take the time and effort to put in the mail is a blessing.
On this blog are plenty of cards, and the printable instructions for making them. What you don’t see are the stories about who they went to and why, or even how they were received, because I keep private matters private. There are stories like M.J. having to put her dog of 16 years down, and how late I was in mailing that sympathy card — but it arrived the day she picked up the ashes. Not late at all.
I entered 2024 with an idea to send customers a card every month, even two months after they made a purchase. I also wanted to send everyone in my Demonstrator group a card every month. Not just a card, but a handwritten note and maybe a recipe, or the sharing of a great book. 2024 is going to be a hot year for disturbing social media, and I remember a quote from Zig Ziglar: “If you treat everyone as though they are hurting, you will be treating the majority of people in the proper manner.” Let’s erase that media wound with a pretty envelope in the mailbox, okay?
My lesson to you for card making is this: “Get the unction to reach out? Send the card!” You really never know what people are going through, and I’m sure you’ve heard that before. It’s true more often than you know. That person needing a card was me in 2020 when a Demonstrator group sent me 71 birthday cards that May! I was too sick to respond until the following year, and I sent everyone a card, a mini letter with thanks and an update in May 2021 because I kept all those cards and return address information. It was great fun!
Meet you at the mailbox!
- Celia Cawthon, Head Gardener
- Chai Tea Latte Lover
- Phone and text: 512.981.8309