I'm Christy Bray and I am an unwilling empty nester who turned to volunteering and crafting to fill the empty hours with my kids gone!  I've gotten over the hump now and am used to my new normal, but I found I was crazy about stamping!  So now I check the mail daily for my new stamping products and work a little bit (or a lot - as time allows!) on my cards every day.

 

I am a Christian, wife, mom, and more.  We have a small business here in town and I do the bookkeeping for that (part-time).  I do Bible Study Fellowship and teach toddlers (when you complain about being an empty nester you get to potty train!!!  Thank you God! ha!)  I have a sweet old weimaraner (14 years old!) named Jag and a Black Russian Terrier named Bear.  Bear goes to work with me every day (protection dog) and takes great care of his mama.  I also love to play tennis and do dog training.  I'm anxiously awaiting a new BRT puppy (female) that I'm planning to show for a while and train for therapy work (hospital visits, elderly, children, etc.).  My awesome husband is the reason I get to do so many fun things.  He's our commander-in-chief and in house chef (he does all the cooking - I only do appetizers, salads, and desserts) and loves to take care of his girls. 

 

I volunteer with the 20th Century Club here in Little Rock.  We have a lodge that provides free housing to patients receiving any kind of cancer treatment in LR.  It's an awesome organization and I just LOVE serving there.  I've made lots of new friends (patients and co-volunteers) and find it so rewarding to be at the lodge.  So when I started stamping/card making I thought, "wouldn't some of those patients like this as well?"  Once a month I do a card making night at the lodge.  It's always most entertaining when the men decide to try it out.  They don't have many entertainment options so why not, right?  Those big manly hands handling our little women-sized stamps and the things they do just crack me up!!!  The funniest was a GIANT man (looked like an NFL lineman) who was making a card for his dad who was his caretaker.  He was almost done with his card and I gave him some dimensional stickers to adhere a little card to the front of the card base.  When I came back around I couldn't help it, I started laughing.  "What I'd do!  What'd I do!" he said, laughing.  "Well, those stickers were supposed to go between the little card and the card base."  (He had glued the little card to the base then put the dimensionals on top in the four corners and pulled the waxy liner off of them.  "Oh!  Well I was wondering how it was gonna slide into the envelope like that!"  He had a smile on his face the whole time.  And after that he spent 15 minutes writing his dad a note telling him whatever was on his heart.  It was funny and heartwarming at the same time.  And that's why I volunteer there!!!  My whole family has gotten in on the act and they all love it too.  They fill in whenever I need the help.