Happy 50th Molly! {and parade pics}

Pat's sister, Molly, is celebrating her 50th at the end of this month. When I saw the fabulous inspiration card from Shari Carroll over at CASE Study, I was immediately inspired to make a card for Molly.  This is my first of two cards this week that will have no stamping on it!  I cut the 50 out on my Cricut and the stickers are Simple Stories that I've had for a while.

I thought I'd also share a couple of pictures from Loveland's 4th of July parade.  Marcel and Jonathon both walked in the parade as part of Loveland's Stage Company's group. They were proudly wearing their Oliver t-shirts.  Both of them ran out of candy before they got to us.  I love Jonathon's smile in this picture.  He had to run and get Marcel from the other side of the street so that we could see him.

And here's Collin with Jonthan's good friend, Cam.  They were enjoying kettle corn while watching the parade.  The weather was gorgeous all weekend and we stayed in Loveland to watch a local band, The Rusty Griswolds (great 80s music) and the fireworks.  Tons of friends were there too. A great night.

As I type this, I'm having the perfect end to my weekend, watching the Wimbledon finals. A great match so far!  I hope you all had a relaxing holiday weekend too.

Thank You {and more Christmas photos}

Happy Monday my friends. Did you see the fabulous inspiration photo over at CASE Study?  It immediately had me grabbing for my WPlus9 stamps. I rarely stamp with blue ink, but I loved the touch of blue in the inspiration photo and love the contrast of the blues with the yellow/orange/red flowers.  A simple CAS thank you.  I needed to fill up my thank you notes.  I apologize for the blurry photo...not sure what is going on with my camera (or likely operator error!).

Here are a few photos from Christmas dinner.  Tim and Kara (Pat's brother and sister-in-law) hosted this year and it was perfect.  Plenty of play time for the cousins and relaxation time with the adults.  Nana and PopPop always do find the pickle in the tree.  The kids love it.  Everyone is a winner (they all got lottery tickets!).  So fun for them all to play along.

On Saturday, we had both sides of our families over for Christmas brunch like we do every year. The kids love to play together.  The three oldest cousins are in the top left...goofing off before they left to go to the mall to return a few Christmas presents.  I love the picture of Shelby on the top left...showing off her own personal style :).  Jonathon got a new game called Suspend and everyone loved playing it.  And the little guys were happy it was warm enough for some hockey and wiffle ball outside.  A perfect day! 

 

Happy Birthday {and show choir pics}

I loved the color combo at CASE Study this week...and yummo...the inspiration photo was fabulous.  I had these glitter snowflakes sitting on my craft desk so this was a super quick card to make.  I love easy CAS cards that have a touch of bling!

As I mentioned yesterday, Saturday night Ryan and Jonathon had a show choir fundraiser.  No pictures of the boys on stage, but we did get some pictures with our family who were there to support them.  It was so awesome to have Pat's mom there.  She has been sick since before Thanksgiving so it has been way too long since we've all been together.  Her smiles in the pictures below say it all.  Madeleine is home from her internship in New York.  We're so happy to have her home too!  And I really don't know what my brother, Neal, is doing in the bottom two pictures...just being himself! It's going to be an awesome year of show choir with both boys competing. I can't wait...

 

  

Merry Christmas and {How to Pitch}

Happy Monday...it's time for a new week!  I'm popping in to share a card inspired by this week's CASE Study challenge.  I love the rustic feel of the card and of course, I love the color combo.  My card features the new WPlus9 stamps. I'm going to get a ton of use out of these wreath stamps.  Absolutely love them!

I also wanted to share a little note we found in Marcel's backpack.  Marcel LOVES baseball.  This spring early in the season he told Pat he wanted to pitch. Candidly, he couldn't pitch...he could barely catch the ball.  Up until this point, he never asked to practice and was happy for baseball to be a social event which in our eyes is great.  No need for competition when you're seven!  But...a few weeks into the season, he was motivated to learn to pitch. He asks Pat to throw to him, catch with him...you name it, he wants to practice it if it relates to baseball.  Needless to say, he is a much better hitter and overall player.  He doesn't get it over the plate quite enough to pitch yet, but with the amount of practice he is putting in it won't be long. We thought this note in his backpack was absolutely adorable. It reads, "How to Pitch.  1.  Put your leg back. 2. Put ball up  3. Then throw it.  4.  Then hold yourself up.  5.  You put your left leg down."  So sweet.  I'm sure he'll be pitching soon!

PS His spelling is actually pretty good...not in this note though :)!

 

 

Back to School!

Hello my friends, I'm popping in with a card for this week's CASE Study.  I loved the graphic nature of Jennifer's inspiration card.  I stamped this before work yesterday very quickly.  I love sneaking in a little inky time! I may pop back for another card for this weekend as I'd like to watch the video Jennifer posted with her cards this week.

I also wanted to share a few pictures from the first day of school this week.  All of the boys were very happy to start back to school.  When I woke Marcel up he said, "Mommy, mommy!  What day is it?  Please tell me it's the first day of school!"  Not sure he'll be saying that when he gets older but I'll take it for today. The boys head out the door in two shifts:  Ryan at 6:45; Jonathon at 7:00; Collin and Marcel at 7:50.  Thus, Ryan and Jonathon's pictures are in the dark {and inside/behind the house as we may be too cool to snap photos in front of the house where their friends can see them}.  Ryan got his license about two weeks ago.  He doesn't have a car to drive to school, but he was determined he wasn't going to ride the bus so he drove with a friend for the first day of school.  Jonathon has grown like crazy this summer.  He's officially passed me in the height department (not that 5'1" is tall by any means), but I think he'll end up being taller than Ryan.  They are wearing the same shoe size now and Ryan has taken over the Sperry Topsiders that I bought for Jonathon.  It made me laugh that in some of the other pictures Ryan put his arm around Jonathon and Jonathon wanted nothing to do with it.  Marcel tried to do the same thing with Collin and Collin wouldn't have any of it.  The youngest and oldest want to hug their brothers (on occasion), but not the middle two right now!  So here we go off for our 10th grade, 7th grade, 4th grade and 2nd grade years!

I had to share this close up of Marcel...I think this smile says it all about his personality.

And here's one with Ryan putting his arm around Jonathon.  Love this picture too...man oh man are they growing up fast!

They all four came home happy with their first day...and 3 out of 4 promptly took a nap.  Marcel was the only one who didn't.  The later summer nights caught up to them!

You Are Appreciated {and more England photos}

It's time for a new week. Candidly, I was ready for the weekend to be a bit longer, but off to work we all most go as the new week starts today!  Yesterday, I had a ton of fun creating.  I found these 3" x 5" Stampin' Up note cards in my stash and had a great time making a lot of card sets.  So...today you're seeing the first of the card sets inspired by this week's CASE Study Challenge.  I love that Jennifer McGuire is doing videos each week too.  She did a lot of masking on her wreath and placed the flowers a lot closer together.  I decided to space out my elements a bit more (because don't tell...I'm quite often too lazy to mask...)

I have more England photos to share with you this week.  For the next few days, we stayed with my cousin, Rob, his wife, Lisa and their daughters, Chloe and Holly. The kids got along fabulously and we had a great time.  Rob and Lisa rented a sailboat for the day and to say it was amazing was an understatement. The day started off rainy and cool, but after lunch it was an absolutely stunning day.  We sailed over the Isle of Wight. We had a pub lunch and were back on the sailboat.  Our skipper was amazingly patient with all of us as we learned to sail. Collin was in pure heaven.  He got to steer a lot and loved every minute of it.

The bottom right pictures are from the BBQ the night before.  My Uncle Danny is the master chef at the BBQ!

 

Madeleine and Elizabeth {plus England Day 3}

This Saturday, my niece, Elizabeth, is off to Ohio State University for her first semester in engineering.  I'm really proud of her and I'm sure she'll continue to be incredibly successful. So, I made the card below for her to send to her during her first week away.  It was inspired by the current CASE Study challenge.

The following week, my niece, Madeleine, goes off to New York for her Michael Kors internship.  She'll be living with five other girls who are also interning in design.  I can't wait to here about her time there.  The card below will be mailed off to her when she is in New York.  As she has finished up summer school, she has been posting pictures of her work on Facebook and Instagram.  I know I'm biased, but she is incredibly talented.   Madeleine's card is inspired by the current Runway Inspired Challenge. 

 I'm sharing more England pictures too.  One of my favorite parts of the trip was Marcel holding my hand.  He holds my hand at home, but he held someone's hand the entire trip.  About a week into the trip, I told Marcel that I loved how much he was holding my hand.  His response, "Well Mommy, I wouldn't want to get lost in England.  You'd have to take a lot of days off work from Paycor if I got lost." My sweet little confident guy was a bit nervous being in a different place.  Here he is below walking with Jonathon.

 For our third day in England, we went to the Tower of London.   The boys absolutely loved the armor and were very fascinated by being in a real castle.  Of course, there were funny moments too.  Take a look at the top middle picture.  Marcel didn't understand why the guard of the crown jewels wouldn't smile at him.  Of course, when we said where we were going, Collin wasn't thrilled about the idea of going to a museum.  Half way through the armor where the boys loved all the swords, etc, Marcel says to Collin, "So Collin, you liking this museum now?"  Collin's response, "Yes."  followed by a swift punch in Marcel's arm and a smile.  Ryan isn't in any of the pictures as he was off shopping with his cousins.

That night we took at speed boat tour on the Thames.  It was James Bond inspired and absolutely awesome.  Since we had been on the bus tour and to the Tower of London already we opted for all speed instead of speed and a tour. Ryan, Elizabeth, Beth and my cousin, Keith, met up with us. It looked like it was going to rain heavily, but we dodged the rain and had an awesome time.  I think you can tell by the smiles that we loved it!

 

Woot! Woot! It's Your Birthday!

Good morning!  I'm keeping it short and sweet as I got up early today to get a bit of work done...and well...I'm procrastinating!  So, I'm popping in very quickly to share a card inspired by this week's CASE Study.  I loved the overlapping colors and decided to try and mirror the same thing with stamping playing with CAS-ual Fridays Loving Blooms set.

Hope you are having a great Sunday...looks like it is going to be a rainy one here! 

 

The Best Parents...

Yesterday was a super lazy day which was perfect...I slept in until 9:30 which hasn't happened in a really long day.  We popped over to the pool for a couple hours, had dinner with my in-laws, made Dippin' Dots with Collin and got lots of time in my craft room!

So...here's one of the cards from yesterday.  A very CAS card to celebrate Pat's aunt being a nana for the first time.  I loved the clean crisp design for this week's CASE Study inspiration.  Hope you like it too!

 

{Card Set Inspiration: Day 2}

I knew when I saw the CASE Study challenge this week that I had to pull out my Hero Arts butterfly stamps.  I love the intricate detail on these.  I decided to keep the design very simple with just a tiny touch of color. SU's Pacific Point is quickly becoming one of my favorite colors.  I added a touch of ribbon to finish off the card.  I made all sympathy cards for this card set, but it would be super easy to change up the sentiments for the card.

 

 

CASE Study - Happy Birthday!

Man oh man...time flies when you're having fun!  It's the last Thursday of the month and that means it is my last week guest designing with the CASE Study crew. I want to thank Chupa for asking me.  I've certainly had a fabulous time!  This week is no exception.  Check out the gorgeous inspiration card from Lisa below.  I love all the colors she had on her card.  I decided to take inspiration from the triangles as you can see.  I adhere the sentiment panel to a subtle patterned paper to add a bit of contrast.

Please pop on over to the CASE Study blog to play along and check out the rest of the design team's creations!

CASE Study - Welcome to the Neighborhood

Where oh where is June going?  We're on week 3 of my guest design spot over at CASE Study.  I've loved being inspired by Lisa Spangler's fabulous cards.  This week I went with the theme of house warming along with the color combo. I love orange and turquoise together.  I used a lot more white space than Lisa's design  and I love that.  You can be inspired in so many different ways by the CASE Study cards.

What do you think?  Pop on over to the CASE Study blog to check out the creations from the rest of the team and of course to play along!

CASE Study Guest Designer - Week 2

Hello again...it's Friday Eve...can you see me doing a happy dance?  I'm back for my second week of guest designing at CASE Study!  Lisa has a gorgeous card for us this week. I love the subtle splash of patterned papers on her card and the perfect placement of the pearls.  My card above also shows how I was inspired by the soft embossing on Lisa's card.  I took a bit of a bolder image to emboss in the background and inked it up with Ranger Pumice Stone.  I die cut a few leaves and add a few pearls to finish off the design.

So what do you think?  Pop on over to the CASE Study blog to play along with us!

CASE Study Guest Designer

Hello Friends! I was so excited when I got a note from Chupa asking me to be the Guest Designer for the CASE Study challenge.  There is a fantastic design team for this challenge, so I'm pretty honored to be guest designing for them.  Now!  Onto the challenge for this week!  Check out Lisa Spangler's inspiration card below.  If you are a Hero Arts fan, I'm sure you are familiar with Lisa's amazing work, but if not, be sure to pop on over to her blog as I have no doubt that you will be inspired.

I'll admit to the inspiration card stumping me for a little bit, but I kept going back to the colors and the free form of how the colors were applied.  So, I went for the color inspiration in a bit of a brighter hue and tried to add a touch of the graphic feel of the card.

I also thought I'd show you another card inspired by Lisa's card above.  This was the first card I made. I like it, but not quite as much as the one above! I don't color so I wasn't even thrilled with my scribbles over my embossed sentiment!

 I'd love to see how Lisa's card inspires you.  Come play along with us over at CASE Study!

Stamps for first card: CAS-ual Fridays Breathe

Second card:  Verve Take Note

Deepest Sympathy

I had a serious crafting session Friday night (makes me oh so happy!).  I had my iPad with lots of my favorite challenges up, Pandora radio, little boys playing outside and I was a happy girl.  Pat was with Collin at a birthday party.  A happy girl creating away.  I wanted to play along with Maile's last inspiration card at CASE Study.  My first card is the fully stamped card below.  It was okay, but I wasn't in love with it.  So then I started hunting through my patterned paper.  I die cut the leaves on the card above and then die cut some smaller flowers. I wasn't really thrilled so I looked through my patterned paper again and cut out this bloom from Crate Paper.  Much happier with the end result!  Happy Sunday my friends.  A day with no plans equals a perfect day for me!