So Very Thankful

Happy Sunday my friends!  Popping in to share a card I made last week when I was at my crafty weekend.  To say I'm grateful for that time away would be a huge understatement.  I love my time away to meet new friends and connect with friends that I have already met. It certainly refreshes my soul to be there.  We laughed together, shared our hearts and created. It was so wonderful. I hope you all are getting in plenty of crafty time too.

Playing along in this week's Casology challenge - perfect for this card!

Party Time

Happy Monday my friends!  Popping in to share a card I made on my last crafty retreat...when I  saw the challenge over at CASology I thought it was the perfect time to share it...while these may not be typical farm animals...I still thought it was a good fit!?  Think this is such a fun set!  Hope your week gets off to a great start.

Dare to Dream

Happy Sunday!  We've had a super busy weekend volunteering for our show choir competition fundraiser!  Over 24 hours of volunteering between Friday afternoon/night and Saturday all day...and over 33 school performances.  I only watched three of those 33 performances but it was an extremely successful fundraiser so all is good!

After sleeping in for a bit this morning and helping Collin with his schedule for next year (how in the world will he be a freshman next year?!) I had sometime to craft.  This card is going to my dear friend's daughter who is going on a retreat in a couple weeks. She graduates this year and is absolutely amazing young lady.  The CASology challenge jump started my crafting!  

I'll be back tomorrow with a few Valentine's cards.  I'm off to watch the olympics now and Collin is making us homemade Philly cheesesteaks as I speak. It's handy when one of your kids loves to cook! I hope you're all enjoying your Sunday.

You've Got This

Time for a new week!  And looking forward to the week zooming forward to the end of the week when Collin and Marcel have their first show choir competition.  Speaking of which (they had their preview night on Saturday so I've attached a few pictures). They looked and sounded great and it was awesome to see them perform together.

But...you're really here to see a card.  This week I'll have a couple more cards using Verve stamps!  This card is for the current CAS(E) this Sketch challenge. I've had the flowers stamped forever and I still love them...so a super fast card that I finished off with a touch of patterned paper and a sentiment.  I'm also going to enter this over at CASology - Encouragement challenge.

Trust in You

Ignore the shadows on my photo :)  I would go snap a new picture but this card is already in the mail.  A fellow show choir mom let me know last night that her husband has just been diagnosed with advanced colon cancer.  So all you prayer warriors out there please keep Jeff in your prayers. I wanted to get a card in the mail to them letting them know we are thinking of them and are here to help.  I though this Psalm from Verve was perfect.  I'm entering this over at CASology for the encouragement challenge.

Believe. Dream. Achieve.

Happy Monday morning. I'm popping in quickly before I head off to work to share a trio of cards I made yesterday.  I'm finishing off card sets and have a few things to celebrate with others so it was a busy day of crafting yesterday!  

First up is avery CAS card for my sister-in-law, Elizabeth. She just received a promotion to CEO of a large real estate development firm. She works super hard and is amazing. So thrilled for her. This one is being entered in the CASology gray challenge. Love this gold and gray background and I thought the sentiment was perfect for her.

Next up is a graduation card for a co-worker who completed his under grad degree this week. He's been taking classes at night for quite some time so this is an awesome accomplishment!  Played along with the current CAS(e) this Sketch for this one. Love having these challenges to quickly inspire me!

Last but certainly not least is a card for the Muse Challenge.  Loved Tracey's CAS one-layer beauty and I was in need of a few more Christmas cards.  Okay...off to get ready for the work day!  Hope you all have a fabulous week!

Bonjour Mon Ami

Pat and I are back from a fabulous week in San Diego for a belated 25th anniversary trip.  It was so nice to get away together. I spent quite a bit of time this morning catching up on work so I was happy to sneak in my craft room after that.  These stamps are from Clearly Besotted and I think they are absolutely adorable. The CASology cue word was perfect. A sharp dressed little poodle was my interpretation of that cue word.  I hope you are getting some time to create too!

PS My apologies for the really dark photos...tried to sneak in the pictures before the sun goes down!

Hi...Miss You...

Happy Sunday my friends. Popping in with a card for the current CASology challenge: Cherish. I was away a few weekends ago on a crafty weekend.  That is time I cherish for certain!  While I was away I made two of this same card.  One went to my oldest, Ryan, who is in his sophomore year at Ohio University and the second one went to my niece who moved out to San Francisco this year and started her first job as a chemical engineer. Love and miss them both tons so I thought these cute little texting bubbles were perfect for them.  Love and cherish them both!

Hope you are having a wonderful day and have had some crafty time this weekend!

Thinking of You

Happy Monday my friends.  We had an awesome weekend...several graduation parties celebrating kids heading off to college in the fall, a baseball game, time at the pool and several hours creating yesterday morning.  My perfect kind of weekend. So that means I have lots of cards to share with you this week!

First up to share this week is actually a card I made last week but didn't get a chance to post.  Perfect to play along with the current challenge over at CASology.  My dear friend Jen sent me these gorgeous stamps. Thank you so much Jen! I appreciate you!

Could...Should...Would...Did!

Well...it's been a long time since I've posted three times in a week and I'm oh so happy to be back here again so quickly. This card I made at my crafting weekend using fabulous Concord & 9th stamps, but hadn't shared it. The current Casology challenge was the perfect change to play along!  This card will go to my niece who just graduated from Ohio State in chemical engineering and is off to San Francisco in August to start her job with Clorox. Crazy proud of her!

Hope you are all getting plenty of crafting time too!

Grateful for Your Kindness

Happy Sunday my friends. Pat and I got back from a fabulous weekend with his sister/brothers.  His sister treated us to see Hamilton for his 50th! It was absolutely amazing. We LOVED the show and can't wait for it to come to Cincinnati in a couple years to take the boys. {there's a picture of us below outside the theater}

When we got home I was itching for a bit of time in my craft room and knew that I wanted to make a card for the current CASology challenge to make a card with the foliage theme.  I decided to follow my friend Moe's idea of trying to make two of each card I make...so two of these now exist in my stash!

Hope you are also getting some time to create this weekend.

 

Thanks

Several weeks ago I received the new Stampin' Up catalog, but I really hadn't had a chance to look through it yet.  We had a rainy Sunday so it was a great day to look through it.  I really miss PaperCrafts magazine...going through and turning pages of cards that inspired me in the magazine.  So this card was inspired by the magazine. There are a lot of cards with soft water color stripes.  It was the perfect opportunity to play along with CASology by making rows of stripes.  I then used my Misti to stamp the sentiment (best invention ever for those thicker sentiments) and no surprise using my new WPlus9 stamps from yesterday.

Besides Pinterest...do you have a favorite place to go for inspiration?

Dream Big

A very dear friend of mine's daughter just committed to Wittenberg University for volleyball. She's going into her junior year of high school next year.  Of course, I'm so pleased for her so I had to give her a card along with a small gift to congratulate her.  This Verve stamp set was sitting out on my desk...and the card very quickly came together.  The school colors are red and white...thus the red butterfly.  I'm entering this over at CASologyhttp://casology.blogspot.com where the current challenge is congratulations.

I had intended to stamp more this weekend, but instead went on a major cleaning and purging spree in my craft room. I have tons of stamps and dies for sale on my For Sale page. Take a look if you're interested! I also spent time watching the Olympic trials...I love watching the Olympics and look forward to happening.

 

Dream Big

We are officially six days from Ryan's high school graduation. He takes his last exam tomorrow and the younger boys all finish school for the summer on Friday.  Life is good with lots of end of year activities.

The two cards I have to share today are for graduation. The first one one top is for the CASology challenge and goes to my sister-in-law. She made a ton...and I mean a ton of cookies for Ryan's graduation party.  I am beyond thankful for her. She loves to bake...so this card will be going to her with a gift card for one of her favorite places.

The second card is going to a dear friend's daughter for her graduation. She reads  my blog (Hi Katie :)!).  So wish we still lived in the same city so we good celebrate together.  Miss her tons! Playing along with Tracey's gorgeous card over at Muse. 

Okay...that's it for tonight!  Off to get ready for the work week ahead.

Ingredients:

Stamps: PaperSmooches Reflections and Thanks Set, Verve (Dream Big)

Stencil:  Tim Holtz

Inks:  Impress Fresh Ink

Hugs From Me to You {and show choir...if you are interested!}

Happy happy Monday...it's time for another work week. We're coming off a gorgeous weekend of mid 50s/low 60s.  It will be very cold by the end of the week, but I'll take the warmer weather while it is here.  It made half marathon training much easier this weekend to be running without feeling like I have tons of layers on!

But...you're here for a card. This CAS little number is using a new die from Winnie & Walter and a stencil die that I inked up with distress inks...thus the entry over at Casology!

And...show choir videos are hard to come by due to copyright laws, but here is one for those who are interested.  Ryan's group performs at the 15:26:35 mark.  He is in the front left for the starting number.   Not sure how long they'll keep this video up...but hopefully for a little while at least!

Christmas Blessings

The stash of Christmas cards is woefully low and I know the next few months are going to zoom on by just like the last few have.  So yesterday when I hit the craft room instead of working on a few sympathy cards that I need to get done, I decided to work on Christmas cards.  The CASology challenge was perfect to get my mojo going.  I used the strip of plaid paper from an older pack of My Mind's Eye paper (it's actually one of the few packs of paper where it has almost all been used). Kara inspired me to get out my felt with her gorgeous cards here, so I was off to the races and made 20 of these.  Yeah me!  Making a dent in that Christmas card stash!

Missing You

Hi there, it's been a bit quite over here on the blog as we were on vacation for a week and then came back trying to get back into the swing of things. Honestly, most nights last week I was crashing on the couch.  Guess I needed more rest after a fabulous week away with our family (21 of us and it was simply fabulous).  Here's a pic of the whole gang!

I found time in the craft room yesterday which was very, very welcome!  Love getting back into the groove of crafting.  Today's card is for the challenge over at CASology.  Love this butterfly die from Frantic Stamper and was itching to use it with my Zig Markers (yes...my last however many posts in a row have shown these!).

Hope your week gets off to a fabulous start!