Keeping it sparkling clean ... for our soldiers

I spotted a post saying that Tracy at Dies to Die For has put out an appeal for cards, so that our soldiers serving in Afghanistan can get cards to send to their loved ones (as she says, the're a bit short on the old shops out there!) What a brilliant idea! And as if it's not a good enough cause by itself, Tracy is offering an entry for each card sent into a prize draw to win a coveted MS Valentine Lace punch - YAY!

Now so far I have just the one MS punch which I did get from Tracy and she was absolutely brilliant to deal with, so I'm bound to buy more from her in future regardless of whether I win this one lol! Unfortunately having been away last weekend I was a bit on the last minute with this (the appeal is open til Saturday 21/3) but I managed to make a couple of cards last night + found one or two more in my stash.

This is one of the 2 cards I made - both virtually identical. I thought I'd best keep it simple as I wasn't sure how fussy soldiers would like their cards to be, plus I'm not the fastest cardmaker in the world. Luckily this came together perfectly with this week's theme for Creative Card Crew Challenge #2, which is Keep It Clean - no paper. I'm really loving my new PB brushstroke stamp at the moment, so I was able to quickly make a focal point, mat it with a bit of ribbon and pop on a trio of co-ordinating gems ... and voila! The little gems not only add a bit of interest but also cunningly put me in the frame for this week's Spoon Full of Sugar Challenge #43 which is ... err... little gems!

This card is actually about as simple as it gets, but I really like it! The stamp is PB "Blush" coloured wtih Marvey brushstroke pens, and the sentiment is also PB from the "Hugs" set.

Hope you like it, and hope that some soldier far from home will like it too enough to send a loving message to someone close. Thanks for looking.