“I got involved with rubber stamping when one of my friends urged me to attend a meeting at the Methodist Church,” said Files, a long-time Springboro resident. “I attended and fell in love with it that night.”
And since then, many people have fallen in love with the personalized cards they receive from her. Files estimates she mails about 15 cards out every week. Her husband, Don, is a woodworker who crafts wooden bowls. For his wife, he made 11 wooden shelves that run along two walls, along with adjacent corner shelving. Files meticulously organizes her collection by occasion and theme: Christmas, birthdays, sympathy, get well, and ‘thinking of you’ occasions have certain sections, along with themes of pets, sports, babies, animals, nature, the military, and others.
“I started doing this while I was still working,” said Files who retired from the Norman Spencer Insurance Agency and the Dayton Dynamo professional soccer team. “I would come home stressed from work, start doing my rubber stamping, and it would relax me. It’s a way of reaching out; I like to cheer people up.”
It’s so relaxing for her, she thinks nothing of starting on her Christmas cards in August. Last year’s card was an embossed grid filled with yellow, green and red images of trees, stars and ornaments. She embellished the bottom with a length of ribbon. It took her several months to create each of the 160 cards separately. Other fun embellishments include glitter and pearlized ‘stickles,’ buttons, specialty punches, and colored wire. She has also a Cuttlebug machine for raised tone-on-tone designs. Her collection of designing scissors rest in a beautiful wooden vessel Don made for her.
“She gets thousands of positive comments from the cards she sends,” Don said. “People always say, ‘I look forward to the Christmas cards every years.’ I’ve heard many people say her cards are the only ones they save. The list goes on and on. I call it her ministry.”
She especially likes to minister to those who are serving in the military.
“I feel very strongly about sending cards to people in the military, because I’m so happy to have my own freedom,” Files said. “I like thanking them for their service. I personalize each card by the branch of service.”
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ontact this columnist at (937) 748-3487 or PamDillon@woh.rr.com.