Outgoing Mail: Letters for our Men and Women of Service

 One of my favorite things to do is to write letters, even letters to strangers! 

I'm a member of The World Needs More Love Letters, a global organization combining the power of social media with the art of letter writing to handwrite and mail love letters to people in need around the world.

One of the letter requests was from the American Legion Auxiliary in Virginia. It says: "One of the many programs we have is sending care packages to our active duty men and women serving overseas. We send them all over the world such as Iraq, Australia, Italy, Germany, Kuwait, Kenya, South Africa, and many other countries. One of the most important things that we include in these packages are letters of encouragement and support. These letters are treasured as these soldiers are away from their family and friends for extended periods of time. The soldiers read and re-read these letters all the time and many have said that they are the favorite part of the care packages. Our letter bin is getting a little dusty and maybe you'd like to help us write letters to our soldiers."

How could anyone say no to that? Cheering up our service members with a simple letter and turning their day from blah to TADA! is such a simple task. I got to work instantly. 

I wanted to enclose a small card that the recipient can easily refer to. I chose a dove because of what it symbolizes (peace, hope, freedom, transformation, and kindness to others during difficult transitions). I made it by tracing a dove-shaped cookie cutter on yellow cardstock and cutting around it with scissors.   

It's the same cookie cutter I used to make this peace dove ornament...TADA! Note: It's okay to use cookie cutters for other purposes too.  

Once I had several dove cutouts, I used watercolors for the details. 

I used a limited palette and made a variety of lines, ruffles, and florals to decorate each dove...TADA!

At the back of each dove, I wrote some words to uplift our men and women of service. 

For the letters, I made my own stationery...TADA! This is just regular copy paper and the blue border is watercolor. 

I also made matching envelopes...TADA! These are plain white envelopes with a swipe of blue watercolor where the names will be written. 

Just to give you an idea, this is one of the letters I wrote.

I tucked the letter and a dove inside the envelope and sent them on its way. I'm really hoping our service members will know they are valued and that these letters will turn their spirits from blah to TADA!

If you'd like to get involved, you can visit More Love Letters and other organizations such as Support Our Troops. 

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