Holiday Postage Challenge

Happy Holidays!  Regardless of what holiday you may celebrate, it is a time of year for sharing and giving to others. In the spirit of gift-giving, we encourage you to consider sending in a donation or book of stamps to help cover the cost of postage expenses. Particularly with the launch of our new Bundles of Cheer program, we welcome and appreciate your assistance as it costs approximately $15 to send care packages to recipients. Postage costs adds up quickly for our program and we anticipate a large number of cards and care packages to be sent this holiday season. Every contribution helps!

Donations can be sent to:
Card Care Connection
112 Saddlehorn Court
Fenton, MO 63026

We continue to welcome any and all card submissions throughout the holiday season.  We hope you are staying up to date with Card Care Connection, and invite you to visit our donation page. Thank you for all of your support and happy holidays!

Bundles of Cheer

Happy first birthday to Bundles of Cheer!  Throughout the last year, we have been excited to see the growth of our program and the ability to reach out to more recipients by sending personalized care packages and cards.  Last November, we launched Bundles of Cheer to provide an added service to our recipients.  We have been so grateful of the outpouring of donations and support.  This month, we challenge our supporters to gather travel-sized products.  We are specifically looking for practical and compact items.  Suggested donations include handmade pillowcases, nail polish, lip balm, lotion, socks, teas, tea light candles, small toys, etc.  The packages will be given to men, women, and children so we welcome a diverse range of products.  We also encourage our supporters to think of other people within their own networks who many be able to donate items.  Please spread the word about our program so we can continue to expand our outreach.  Check out the link on our website

Happy Birthday

Happy belated birthday to Card Care Connection! September marked our organization's fourth year of bringing joy and hope through inspirational messages to those affected by cancer, and in celebration, we are asking for donations of birthday themed cards for this month.

Birthday cards have an extensive history, a tradition developed over a century ago when messages of good will were exchanged to mark a special milestone. We challenge our cardmakers to continue bringing smiles and cheer to our recipients and look forward to receiving cards in recognition of our fourth birthday. Thank you to all of our supporters for your ongoing passion and creativity to providing encouragement and enriching the lives of those we serve. 

Created by Joanne P. (MO)

Cards for Children

September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness month, meant to recognize the thousands of children who are diagnosed with cancer each year. For September, we are challenging you to send us children’s themed cards.

Our Executive Director works as a pediatric oncology social worker and sees the smiles that a bright, cheery card can give to a child facing lengthy hospital stays and treatments. She sees the impact that cards have on the patients’ families, too, by providing a sense of community for their child. In addition, we have been receiving many referrals for children for their birthday. We look forward to being able to send beautiful cards to children all across the country that could use a smile and thoughtful card. 

Thank you Diane C. for this creation

Travel Challenge

In the midst of summer time, traveling with family, friends and your significant other is part of the fun! Whether you're going on vacation to a new city, a weekend getaway or a summer camping trip, the process of getting there is an important part of the journey. With that in mind, this month’s challenge is creating cards that show methods of travel. Show us some of your favorite ways of getting to where you're going, whether that is by plane, boat, car, or something else! How do you travel?

Be creative, there are lots of ways to get around!

Thank you Diamond Lake Lutheran Church

Beauty Bash

We are excited to host the 2014 Beauty Bash at the Saint Louis Galleria!  The Beauty Bash will be an afternoon of family friendly fun and pampering on July 26th from 1-4pm.  There will be makeovers, face painting, massages, facials, hair styles, raffles, refreshments, and more.  This event is open to the community and all are welcome.  

If you aren’t able to make it or don’t live in the area, help us grow this month by telling friends about Card Care Connection.   One way to complete this challenge is to invite friends to a card-making party to share the mission of Card Care Connection and do some meaningful crafting!

Another way to extend the reach of Card Care Connection is to send us referrals.  Making a referral to our program is easy and can be done on our website.

Also please consider donating stamps, unused crafting supplies, or a monetary donation.  Even though we are all volunteer based, postage and craft supplies add up quickly.

Thank you for all you do to help support our organization.  We hope to see you at the Beauty Bash!

Masculine Cards

In honor of Father’s Day, we are bringing back a request for masculine cards.  We recognize that it is easier to make bright color pretty cards that are more fit for a female, but we get a lot of card requests for males.  So, what kind of masculine themed cards can you create?  We hope this will exercise your crafting mind in a different way to come up with designs and combinations that are more fit for a male.

The possibilities are endless!  One way to start might be with changing colors to more masculine tones.  You can also use different images like boats, sports, or nature.  Here is a card we received from that you may want to use as inspiration.

Thank you to Diamond Lake Lutheran Church

Flower Challenge

Happy spring card crafters!  As the weather is getting warmer and flowers are in bloom, we thought this month’s challenge should be focused on flowers.  Flowers are our most received card design and our most requested.

We get flowers in many different forms: stamps, paper, embellishments, buttons, and more.  What are some clever ways you can create flowers out of your supplies?

Thank you all for all that you do!  We look forward to our monthly blog posts, because you all continue to impress us with such beautiful and creative cards.

Thank you Julie J. (IL) for these creations.

April Showers

Welcome back card makers! We want to thank you for all the hard work you continue to put into our challenges. Spring has finally sprung! We are welcoming this weather with open arms after such a chilly winter season. We want to be able to bring the spring weather to all the card recipients who are unable go outside to enjoy the warmer, spring weather. This month, our challenge for you is to send us “April Showers” cards. They can have umbrellas and rain boots, clouds, rainbows, or anything else that reminds you of the spring weather.

Thank you St. Louis Chi Omega Alumni Group for this creation

National Craft Month - Embossing Challenge

Did you know that March is National Craft Month?  As crafters who like to help others, we want to recognize your devotion and good will in donating beautiful cards for people facing cancer.  We continue to receive cards that impress us here at Card Care Connection as well as the card recipients.

The challenge for cards this month is a crafting technique that we love – embossing.  Embossing is a technique where paper is pressed to create a raised design in the paper, and it is a technique that can add a touch of elegance to a greeting card.  We also encourage texture in our cards because it can be a helpful aid for our elderly patients who may have trouble with their vision and seeing the detail in a card.  The embossing adds another element that can be accessed through the sense of touch, and can make the impact of the card even more powerful.  Thank you all for putting your craft skills to a good cause!  We’re excited to see the embossing that you send our way!

Our next quarterly newsletter is coming out soon, too.  Make sure you are signed up to receive it by visiting our website here.

Thanks to Deb P. and Diamond Lake Lutheran church for these creations. 

Valentine's Inspired Theme

Thank you to all of our loyal blog followers as well as those of you who are new to our blog challenges!  In the spirit of Valentine's month, this February we are looking for cards that incorporate the colors red and/or pink.  We love our color theme challenges as you all always bring us such exciting and unique designs!  As our new Bundles of Cheer program is taking off, we hope that we can incorporate these cards with many of our bundles to be distributed to cancer patients all over the country. 

Thank you Carla F. (IL) for your contribution 

Thank you Brenda L. (MO) for your contribution