June RAK Revealed

Hey all! Hope all is well in your crafty corners of the world! I've really had fun this week visiting a lot of your blogs and seeing all the cool stuff you all have been doing. You are all truly an inspiration to me. That said, that is the perfect lead into this new post of mine. (Please make sure you read the last couple of paragraphs!)

I was excited to sign up for a RAK (Random Act of Kindness) on my blogging buddy's blog a few weeks ago. Being new to this crafty and card making world, I had never heard of this thing called a RAK, and once I found out what it was, I was anxious to do it. So I signed up for the RAK for June at Jen Young's blog and was matched with Jen herself! For those of you who still don't know what a RAK is, it is simply you being matched up with someone else who signed up and then you send something to each other. Kind of like a little surprise or an "act of kindness". From my understanding, it could be anything, it was simply up to you. So, once I signed up, I felt a little anxiety about it. I kept thinking. . ."What if they don't like what I send? and "What the hell am I going to send?" So, long story short, I got an inspirational idea from one of my "mentors" Julie Koerber over at "Out to Impress". In one of her recent posts, she had done some monogrammed cards, and they were simply beautiful. So I thought "That's it! I'll do a set of monogrammed note cards!" So that's what I did. See them below:



(click on the picture for a larger shot) Her name is Jennifer so obviously I used the initial J for her cards. I chose this scripted J and sized it on my computer and printed several of them off onto white card stock. As you can see from the picture above, I made each of them differently. The only thing consistent is that the same J is used and each has at least one element of "bling" on it. I call this my "Bling Collection". . .LOL. I wanted each to reflect a different feel. One whimsical (red/white), one more formal (black/cream), one that reflected where she lives (Hawaii) (pink/white), and one that was really "girly" (paisley/bow).



I hand made each envelope to match the card (example above) The color is off on this one for some reason. The envelope is white and the inner paper is the same on the card. The lighting was weird I guess.



I then put them in this satin finished box and used one of the circles with the initial and bling to attach to the ribbon. And there you have my first RAK! It was a lot of fun, but I was still worried about what she would think about it when she received it. Well, I'm happy to report that she emailed me today telling me that she loved them and she said that she was not going to use them, but frame them and hang them in her house! LOL She is so funny! I couldn't post this until I knew that she got it so it wouldn't ruin the surprise if she read my blog before she got it.

I'm working on several cards/projects at the moment that I can't wait to post here for you to take a look at and tell me what you think. So don't forget (if you haven't already) to subscribe to this blog up there on the right so that you will be notified when I update the blog. Ever since I have put the subscription service up, I've been getting tons of notifications that people are subscribing! That is so cool and I am so honored. Also, I can't believe that I have now had over 1,000 people visit, so when the counter reaches 2,000 I'm going to give away some blog candy like so many others have done.

One final thing. . . I have recently come across one of the most fabulous people I've ever "met" through this blogging thing and I would love to share her and her blog with all of you who visit here. Her name is Jennifer Muraoka and you can visit her blog here (I also have her linked above in my links section under "Jenn in Hawaii"). Yes, another Jennifer in Hawaii and both unbelievably talented and amazing human beings. Jennifer Muraoka honored me this week with a tribute to me on her blog for my birthday. I have never felt so honored. She not only announced it was my birthday and made an adorable card for me which she posted too, she used that card to do her video for the week called "Aloha Friday". She even used the song "Celebration" for the background music in the video. If you get a chance, please go to her blog and look at these videos if you want to be absolutely blown away by her talent and creativity. These videos she does are nothing less than awesome and something like I've never seen anywhere else. Thank you Jennifer for making last week really special for me. I can't tell you how much it meant!

Finally, sorry for such a long post, just so much to say. DON'T forget to look at the "Picture of the Week" below. I took this photo this morning while walking the boys in a nearby park. It was an awesome moment and I'm so glad I had my camera to capture it. Enjoy! And thanks again so much for visiting!

Best,

Curt