Courage for Man Card Monkey Challenge 58

There's a story behind this week's A La Card Monkey challenge card. It's for my nephew, who is a Marine recently injured by an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) in Afghanistan. I only have sketchy information - he was seriously injured on May 22 and went through surgery for internal injuries, he was moved to Germany on May 24, and had another surgery May 26. He is now in Bethesda, MD, and able to joke, which is a great sign. My niece flies out tomorrow morning from California to be with Russell. We're praying he recovers, and we're praying for Jordan to be strong. Both are young, she's 21 and he'll turn 21 next month.

So the stamp set is Courage. I think it fits Russell very well. He is upset about having to leave "his guys" over there. The sentiment is from Occasional Quotes, a Level 3 hostess set. The Man Card theme and sketch come from Monkey Challenge 58 shown below:

Create your own Man Card and upload it to http://alacardmonkey.blogspot.com/.

Courage birthday invitation...

My son's birthday is here again and like every year before this one, he's asked for a "soldier" invitation to be made for his friends. This year's birthday invite features the Courage stamp set, along with Sincere Salutations. I started with a Crumb Cake card, then added a layer of Early Espresso and Woodland dsp. The main image from Courage was stamped in Early Espresso and sponged with the same color all the way around. I used the wide oval punch on the sentiment, adhering it with dimensionals.