Garden photos & cards for soldiers

I LOVE irises! Usually we have hundreds in our front yard, back yard, wooded area and along our fence lines. Maybe it's because of all the rain (60.66" last year, and bunches this year so far) making our red clay too dense for the roots to breathe, but this year only a few dozen came up. Here's one of them.

The good news is that this is turning out to be a fabulous year for hydrangeas! We currently have thirteen, but I want to add more. This one can't quite make up its mind what color wants to be. What the photo doesn't show -- and thinking about it, perhaps I should have put a ruler next to the flowers -- is that they're double the size of a softball.


This, more decisive one right next to it, is one is all pink. All the time.


Back in our wooded area, we have several white hydrangeas, which have grown to between 8-10 feet tall since we planted them eight years ago.


This past weekend, along with my usual cards for soldiers, I made two very personal ones. This first one is for a sergeant single mom who's deployed at the most dangerous base in Iraq to send back home to her son. Since we just "adopted" her through Soldiers Angels, I don't know what he likes yet, but hope to find out soon when I hear back from her. The owl was cut with my Cricut Paisley cartridge in layers, but since it called for a flower on the wing, which seemed too girly for a boy, I covered the little indentations it made with a star instead. The stickers are from my stash; the You stands out a bit more in real life because those letters are acrylic.


We also had bad news last week. Our medevac nephew, who was stop-lossed last year and sent to Afghanistan, had been focused on getting out in September so he could attend Oregon State University, which has been his dream since he was a little boy. Not long ago sweetie, an OSU alum, sent him a OSU Beavers pin he wears on his body armor when he goes out on a mission. Well, unfortunately, they need a LOT of medics who go out in helicopters in Afghanistan, so he was told that he won't be coming home anytime soon. Certainly not in time for fall semester and no one can tell him for sure when he will finally be getting out. Since he's also served in Iraq, needless to say this was not what he was looking to hear.

So, to hopefully boost his morale, I found a photo of Benny the Beaver -- the team mascot -- playing a guitar and matted it with orange, which I inked in black on the edges, on some grunge black paper. Then, inside, I cut out letters saying You Rock! in black with an orange shadow. Yes, those are Halloween colors, and I doubt there's a woman alive who looks good in them, which only goes to show how loyal true Beav fans are. LOL