Hiya! It’s like a Friday to me at work since tomorrows the fourth. YEAH!

I just want to share this card with you today. It’s based on Kristina’s color challenge and this time it’s monochromatic-ish with a splash of color. It’s for my MIL. It’s her bday soon and this is the front. The inside is going to say (I think in the bottom right corner) something like “or 45.” That’s what hubby said. I thought that was cute {::SMILES}.

This card is super easy. The hard part was the circles. I have those old Creative Memories punches (not sure if they still sell the same ones or not) and they are so hard to push unlike the SU or EK ones. But, I only had a few to do so it wasn’t bad. If this was a swap, I’d probably buy a new one, heee…

Everything is SU except the ribbon (Martha Stewart) and the chipboard (American Craft). I am the owner to many chipboard alphas and I don’t use the numbers so much and thought this was a perfect way to use them. I used a lot of dimensionals too. I used SU for the thinner ones and Making Memories for the thicker ones.

So what’s this Kiva deal? Well, it’s basically you helping people in developing countries live better by giving them a loan for their business or personal needs (so far I only want to lend to businesses). I did my first lending ($25) some months back and just recently she repaid her loan. She was a trash collector in Indonesia and asked for a $75 loan. Hopefully her business is doing well! This time around (with the same $25 I donated months ago) I picked a young gentleman, a cattleman, down south. I can’t remember what country in S. America it is and at this time the login for Kiva is down.

Kiva, FINCA, etc. do the same thing… micro lending to help rid of poverty by enabling/giving these people the finances to do better. What I like about Kiva is that I get the money (sometimes people do default though) that I lend back to me and I can reuse it for another person, donate it to Kiva or cash it back. FINCA I think seem to reach out more. Check out their calculator and see what $30 can do.

Have a great 4th everybody! I’ll be hanging out with friends tomorrow. I’ll probably be gone until later in the weekend or next week. We need some family and house time. Happy birthday America (that’s what M said)!!!